In a Lonely Place
by JoBethMegAmy. my homegirls
Summary: 1945 noir AU. "When Maura Isles walked into my office, I knew three things right away: she came from a family wealthy enough to own a private island, she could turn heads faster than a struck match could make fire, and she was almost certainly the woman who had tried slipping a gorgeously manicured hand inside my pants in the back of a taxicab three weeks ago."
1. Cat Out of the Bag

**A/N**: I know, I know, I know! I should _not_ be starting another story right now. But the crossover only has about two chapters left in it, and then it'll be done, and I couldn't stop myself from typing up this introduction. The western will always have my heart and my most devoted attention. But I thought why not go for an AU genre where the sexual tension could be acknowledged for what it was? And then this happened.  
Jane's POV. Sit back for ridiculous noir cliches and '40s slang. Also, there will be more movie quotes in this fic than I could possibly ever cite properly in author's notes. Usually I try to give credit when I re-appropriate something, so just know that if you read any fantastic zingers, I probably didn't write them. Lines from this chapter reference _The Women_, _The Awful Truth_, and _The Glass Key_... strangely, only that last one is a noir. Oh well. Actually, after much debate over what to call this story, trying and failing to be original, then trying and failing to modify a good noir title, I just upright took one. (One of my other stories is already named for a film, so I figured, why not. There's my **disclaimer**. These characters don't belong to me, either, while I'm at it.)

* * *

When Maura Isles walked into my office on a rainy day in February, I knew three things right away: she came from a family wealthy enough to own a private island, she could turn heads faster than a struck match could make fire, and she was almost certainly the woman who had tried slipping a gorgeously manicured hand inside my pants in the back of a taxicab three weeks ago.

I was excessively grateful that I had lived to see the end of the war, when silk was allowed to be put right back where God intended it to be—showcasing the legs of women like Maura Isles, who was currently strutting towards my desk in three-inch red heels, leaving a trail of fire in her wake.

"Detective Rizzoli?" She sounds a little surprised. I can't help wondering if she's thinking back to that taxicab ride as well, because even with just two words, I know I recognize that voice.

"Miss Isles." I don't stand up. I stay safely in my chair, safely behind my desk. "Won't you have a seat?"

She obliges, shrugging off an enormous mink coat that probably cost more than four years' rent on my apartment. The action causes her perfume to waft over in my direction, a delicious scent of fresh peaches mixed with… lavender? Whatever it was, it definitely belonged to the woman who had split a cab with me those few weeks ago. With the coat no longer obscuring her frame, I saw Maura's dress: deep red and sleeveless, held up by a thin strap of fabric that came up from her ample chest and encircled her neck. Tossing her golden hair back with an almost feline sense of casual pride and indifference, she crossed her legs and arched one finely trimmed eyebrow.

"How did you know my name?" she asked. "You don't have a secretary who could've announced me."

I nodded at the old newspaper on my desk. Maura would be looking at it upside-down, but I figured she'd be smart enough to be able to recognize her own picture on the front page. Her face and name were splashed across the paper like a gallon of pink paint on a black top: impossible to miss and all over the place. It was last Sunday's paper, but the article had had everyone in town buzzing like flies over a fresh cut of road kill—_Fairfield's Fling Gives Way to a Ring!_

"Not a bad headline," I said, and I sensed Maura detected my sarcasm. "I mean, it's no 'Hix Nix Stix Pix,' but still. Really grabs the eye." Not unlike the ice rock on her finger, which looked big enough to have its own mailing address. "So," I said, picking up the paper and giving it a needless shake. "Which Fairfield is it?" I asked, scanning the article for a first name and looking at his picture. "I always get those fuddy-duddies mixed up."

"If you are asking which one was enough of a nut to propose to me, it's Adam, the oldest."

"A nut, huh?" I asked, smirking. "Hm. Millions of dollars and no sense?"

She returned the smirk, shrugging and leaning forward, pressing her breasts together. "Essentially."

I folded the newspaper, keenly aware of the fact that she was observing my every move. She wasn't just idly watching me, waiting for my attention. She was scrutinizing me. She was tracking the smallest of my movements for any tell-tale details. If she hadn't placed me yet, I knew she would, soon. After leaning over to toss the paper in a trash bin, I straightened up and opened my desk drawer, pulling out a cigarette case. "Smoke?" I offered, opening it over the desk.

"Thank you," she said demurely, uncrossing her legs and leaning forward slightly. Rather than take the case, she slid out one cigarette. "Got a light?"

Pulling out a cigarette for myself, I flipped open a box of matches and struck one, holding it out to her. Maura took my hand and brought it closer, igniting the end of her cigarette, and her eyes burned like embers when she looked up at me. She did not release my hand right away, and after holding onto it far longer than was necessary, she gently pushed it back towards me, ultimately releasing it. I could feel her eyes on me as I lit my own cigarette, and she took a regal draw on hers. I put the case back in my drawer and looked up to see her handling her cig in a way that should be illegal. It looked obscene. She issued a steady stream of smoke into the space between us, just softly enough that I couldn't have accused her of trying to breathe in right into my face.

Once most of the thicker smoke had cleared, I could see her eyes again and now I knew she recognized me. That night we split a cab, she had been wearing a mask which carefully concealed half her face, just as I had been. We had left the same costume party at a very secret, very underground bar. I had been sober and she had been too drunk to have hit the far side of a barn. Or at least she had _seemed_ that way. Maybe she just really let loose when she hit the hooch even just a little bit. She certainly seemed very cool now. Aloof.

I knew she remembered me. It was probably my voice that did it. And now I knew she knew that _I _knew. Just as much as I knew neither of us were going to bring it up… directly. Yet.

"So what brings you here?" I finally asked.

Her voice is smooth as glass when she replies, "Adam's gone missing." For all her emotion, she might have just announced that her maid had switched to a new starching brand.

"Adam's gone missing."

"My fiancé. Nobody has seen him for five days."

"And you waited until now to report it?"

She appears unfazed by the accusatory bite to my tone. I know she'd have been expecting it. "Adam likes to sail. He's often away for a few days at a time without sending word, but this is the longest it has ever been."

"Five days ago, did he tell you he was going out sailing?"

The pause was only a second too long to be entirely convincing. "Yes."

"Did he say how long he planned to be gone?"

"No. But he's never been gone longer than three days without docking somewhere and calling."

"Calling you?"

"Or one of his brothers."

"If I may ask, Miss Isles… why didn't you go to the police?"

She shrugged and crossed those gorgeous gams again, knowing I would be unable to resist watching the sensual move. "His family didn't want a scandal. If we went to the police, word would get out. It was their and my understanding that a flatfoot would be more discreet."

I wouldn't have resented the word "flatfoot" if she hadn't curled her lip when she'd said it, like it was even more disgusting or amusing than a cuss word. Her hand rested on her knee, the cigarette tucked between two fingers and untouched since that first draw. I nodded at it and said, "Them gaspers don't come cheap, Miss Isles." Raising an eyebrow, she obligingly brought the cigarette back to her lips, rolling it between her fingers and keeping her eyes purposefully on mine. "How did you find out about our office?" I asked.

We were a small operation: Korsak, Frost, me. And Jo Friday, if you counted the company dog. Nobody ever seems to count the company dog.

Maura thoughtfully pulled her cigarette out from between those perfect, glaringly red lips. "You have quite a reputation, detective. In certain circles." She let the words linger, gazing at me, waiting for a reaction. She wanted me to know she was intently being oblique before clarifying. "I hear you're good. _Very _good …at what you do." Her legs uncross once more and she leaned back comfortably in her chair, now shifting her legs to the side and crossing them at the ankle. "Anyway. Cavanaugh sent me."

I snorted. Cavanaugh and Korsak used to work as cops together before they both quit the force. Well, Korsak had quit; Cavanaugh had gone corrupt and had been in the big house for a decade. He was a good man at heart, but a pushover when it came to bribes. If Maura knew him, that meant her family had probably relied on his services at some point.

"So," I said slowly. "You'd like me to find Mr. Fairfield."

The dimple on the right side of her mouth deepened slightly as she smirked. It was inexplicably stunning. "Yes, I'd like you to find Mr. Fairfield."

"You don't seem terrible fussed about it, if you don't mind my saying." I didn't care if she _did_ mind, and besides, I could tell she wasn't the type who would. "You're a hard one, aren't you?"

She shrugged and rubbed her knee. "Oh, I can be soft…on the right occasions."

I walked right into that one, but did not want to give her the satisfaction of knowing she'd pulled the rug out from under me. Clearing my throat, I leaned over the desk and very consciously blew some smoke in her face. I wanted to see if I could get that composed demeanor to crack. No dice. She didn't even blink. She just kept smiling that tight-lipped, cat-like smile. "And did Mr. Cavanaugh mention my fee?"

"He did." Not that it mattered. Finding the money to pay me would be about as difficult for Maura or the Fairfields as affording a candy bar. "Half up-front?"

"On your way out," I said, nodding at the door. "Give it to Frost. He's good with money."

"Better than you?" she asked, and God, why was she fighting the smirk? Let it out!

I knew she was remembering how I had fumbled with my wallet in the cab, how I had shown about as much dexterity in pulling out some bills as a kid trying to remove a dame's bra for the first time. Clumsy. Flustered. Eyes everywhere but where they should be. It wasn't really my fault—I had been distracted by the things Maura was doing to try and get me to stay in the car with her.

Usually I don't get ruffled so easily. In any area of my life, professional or private, I like to be in control. It's why my mother and I butt heads so often—I guess it's a trait I picked up from her. No man or woman of any level of sobriety had ever been as forward with me as Maura had been that night. Men respected that I wasn't a doll. They knew what they were getting involved with when they took me out. Women were instantly cowed by me. Usually I don't have to say or do a thing except give one look. That's why it had taken me so off guard when Maura became aggressive in the backseat of that cab. Nobody ever got aggressive with me. If they did, they got squirted metal to the chest or a slap to the kisser right away. All Maura got were some pennies accidentally spilled onto her lap before I managed to stumble out and pay the driver my share.

Now we sat separated only by a desk, both of us calm and collected, maybe trying to impress each other. I was merely remaining professional, but I can't speak for her. She seemed _too _on top of it.

"Well?" she finally asked. "What do you say, detective?"

"I just want to make sure you understand what you're in for," I said, clasping my hands together and leaning forward enough for her to look down my shirt if she wanted to. I saw her eyes dart downwards just for a moment before meeting mine again. "If it turns out something _has _happened to your fiancé, we're going to need access to things. I know how your type is. Your families, yours and his. You like protecting your assets, your self-interest."

Maura nods in understanding and there is a purr in her tone when she volleys back, "I assure you, detective. If you agree to help us, I will make sure you have access to anything you need."

My eyes narrowed and I could see her biting her cheek, still smirking. She was challenging me. "Let me tell you something, Miss Isles. We're not a legitimate establishment here. We don't play by the rules if we don't want to. We work by our own code of conduct that shifts on a case-by-case basis. You're here, and that means two things: you're desperate and you don't want word to get out. I gather you don't like sharing secrets. You don't like letting people in. That's all right. You just need to be prepared to accept that if I get the low-down on Mr. Fairfield's disappearance and don't like what I find, you may have some explaining to do. You may have tell me everything about yourself. All of it. Savvy?"

Again, composed. Again unfazed. "That's a big little word, 'all,'" she nearly whispers. Her counter-offer: "Let's make it _mostly_ all."

"Let's cross that bridge when we come to it. For now, take a powder and I'll be in touch with you. Don't forget to leave the dough with Frost on your way out."

She slid a card out of her purse and onto my desk before she stood up and turned around. I nearly had to bite my fist to keep from groaning out loud: her dress was backless, exposing a V-shaped section of delicious-looking skin from her shoulders to just above a very firm ass. Once Korsak showed me an issue of his National Geographic magazine that had a photograph of a lioness tearing into a fresh piece of prey. That's the image that came to mind when Maura turned her back on me: I wanted to tear into that dress for a slab of that red meat.

And when she looked over her shoulder to make sure I was watching her walk away, she saw that look.

I had never been caught staring before.

She didn't turn fully around. She just finally addressed the elephant that had been taking up half the room: "Detective. If you don't mind my asking… that night…"

A long pause followed this, and I got the impression she was hoping I would step in and finish the thought for her. "Yes?" I asked, folding my hands on top of my desk.

Perhaps it's the fact that she was looking at me over her shoulder. Perhaps it was the fact that she no longer seemed to be smirking. Perhaps it was the fact that her tone was flat. But for the first time, I couldn't tell if she was being funny or sincere when she asked, "Were you at that bar for work or pleasure?"

I took my time formulating a response. Make _her _wait, for a change. Finally I said, "This job is my life, Miss Isles. I don't have time for fun. If a case happens to land in the general vicinity of pleasure, it's a happy coincidence."

With that, she finally left, letting the door snap shut behind her, and I let out a breath I hadn't realized I'd been holding. I listened to the _click-clack _of her heels as they walked down the hall outside my office, sounding like Chinese water torture.

There was now one more thing I could add with certainty to my list of known facts regarding Maura Isles: she was going to make this case the death of me.

* * *

**A/N**: And so it begins. I can't promise updates as steady as the Calamity Jane ones- at this point, I just want an idea of whether people are interested. It'll get more attention once the crossover is finished. For the next chapter, I was thinking of a good old noir-flashback of the night Jane and Maura met.


	2. Behind the Eight Ball

**A/N**: Thanks for the feedback, everyone- glad you enjoyed that first installment. Here's an old-fashioned flashback, with references to _The Thin Man_, _Dead Men_ _Don't Wear Plaid_, and _The Glass Key_. So yes, in answer to some of your questions, I watch a ton of old movies. I used to watch them a lot more, so their kind of lingo was effortless to write. It's a bit harder now. I just think that's the fun of doing a '40s period piece, which a lot of films and books miss out on these days.

* * *

Korsak is usually the contactor. Frost is the P.I. And I solve mysteries. All in all, it's a pretty good system: Korsak's an old white guy who _looks _like a copper, so people feel comfortable in telling him their problems, and they're more likely to open up if he makes an offer to assist them. Frost's skin color is a help and a hindrance at the same time—there are some places that won't let him in, but a lot of the time, he finds out things _because_ people tend to overlook him. It's a crap world for it, but those are the breaks. I don't know if people just think he ain't listening, or he ain't smart, or what—but Frost's been on top of some pretty important cases. He's a smart guy.

Frost and I are a bit alike in that way. I'm not smart as him, but people tend to underestimate us. People expect lugs like Korsak to be a cop. They don't expect me or Frost. Korsak likes to joke that my woman's intuition is what makes me a great snooper. Apparently, dolls get hung up on small details that men just don't ever seem to notice, and while I can't speak for other women, I guess that might be true in some instances. And I don't like to start things without finishing them, so I never let a case remain unsolved.

Boston's a town with a lot of secrets. Everything seems hunky-dory on the surface, ever since the war started. It seems like half of us started depending on people even more than before, bringing us closer together as a country, but the other half—the half that's rarely above ground—wants to exploit people's nightmares. Why these gangsters couldn't just go over and kill Nazis or the Japanese instead of their fellow Americans always baffled me. "Freedom from fear" my ass.

Anyhow.

* * *

_Three weeks ago, Frost got a call from a Mr. Harry Lawrence, a pretty esteemed merchant in the area. He also happens to be black, and has thankfully managed to avoid any serious harassment. His store draws a lot of black customers, of course, and I guess it must be nice to be able to go shop someplace without having salesclerks popping up every five seconds to make sure you haven't glaumed anything. I don't know if Frost ever went to Lawrence's store, but that's beside the point. Lawrence asked Frost to tail his wife, to get the wire on her. Apparently, the Mrs. hadn't been getting back until late at night for the last couple of weeks. Not every night, but often enough that Lawrence was starting to get suspicious. And I don't blame him: he's probably nearing sixty and just dizzy about his wife, apparently a real dish who couldn't have yet been thirty. A gold-digger if there ever was one. _

_One night, Frost managed to follow her to one of the less reputable streets in our fine town. It was near midnight, and the street was nearly empty. He said he got the impression that Mrs. Lawrence knew she was being followed—she didn't do anything overt, like turn around or raise her eyebrows at him or anything, but when you've been a P.I. as long as Frost, you pick up on subtle hints. She ducked into a side alley, and instead of turning after her, he walked a little further and went across the street. From this faraway diagonal perspective, he could still see where she went. He waited a few minutes, then approached the door he had seen her go through. _

_He knocked and said for minute he felt like he was back at a speakeasy: instead of opening the door, a woman pulled back a little grille at eye-level. She stared at him and was about to close it again when he said, "Please. That woman who just walked in—she been here before?" _

"_Don't know who you're talking about," the woman said before closing the grille in his face. _

_Frost wondered if maybe Mrs. Lawrence had just stepped in there to shake him off. But he kept going back to that alley late at night, and kept seeing women of all colors surreptitiously enter the door, Mrs. Lawrence often among them. This is what clued him in that he hadn't been kept out according to his race but to his gender. Time for me to give this a shot. We both knew what this was probably leading up to. A back-alley club that allowed female patrons only seemed pretty straightforward. _

_I wore my best pair of slacks and sensible shoes to go with the white button-up shirt I had on under a black blazer. The shoulder pads were a bit too Joan Crawford for my liking, but (in addition to the slacks) they sent out the message that I was not a woman looking to be dominated or be coy. The world better get out of my damn way, and fast, unless it wants a paddle to the ass. I went pretty light on the makeup, just some eyeliner and a little lipstick that was barely noticeable. Frost regularly told me that it didn't matter if I wore makeup or not; people always noticed me. He's sweet. _

_The address was too far away to walk, so at around ten o'clock I boarded a bus and headed over to that part of town. As was my custom, I sat in the last row—fewer questions that way. I have to admit, the prospect of this case excited me. Naturally I would keep things professional, but a little fondling wouldn't hurt… and I was sure there would be fondling. _

_Perhaps I should explain: I've been with men. I've known them in a biblical way. But the first time I ever felt really, actually alive with sex was the first time I touched another woman. It was just before the war broke out, and I was closing shop for my brother Tommy—he had a part-time job working at a garage owned by the Gilberti's, the only other Italians on our street. They trusted me enough to get the job done whenever my unreliable brother was off chasing a skirt. A girl maybe a year or two older than me came in after everyone else had left, and I was checking the parts and the cars in the shop, making sure nobody had taken off with anything. After a while, I noticed this girl standing there, biting her lip, staring at me like I was the last man on earth—which was strange, because I was not a man, and we hadn't even joined the war yet so there was no danger of a sudden male shortage. _

_Something overtook me. I straightened up and when I asked her if there was something she needed, I could've sworn she moaned. I recognized the throbbing between my legs and suddenly knew I had to kiss this girl. It struck me instantly that for years, I hadn't been envying beautiful women of their looks; I had been craving the sensation of my lips on theirs, my hands on their bodies, my name in their breathless gasps. So I led this woman back to Gilberti's tiny pigsty of an office, hiked her skirt up, and sucked on her neck as I slid my hand between her legs. It felt amazing. Sex with men wasn't like this. This was the real McCoy. _

_I never saw her again._

_But I saw others. Plenty. In gas station restrooms, in near-empty movie theaters, in alleys at night. Anywhere dark, anywhere secret. Anywhere I could be relatively anonymous. Some of them recognized me, some of them even found out my name. But I never saw a woman more than once—maybe twice, tops. It just couldn't go anyplace. Ma will be anxiously begging for me to get married until I die (because she will outlive me). I'll probably tie the knot at some point. I still like men somewhat. I could marry Casey, for example, if he ever came home from Japan. It'd be settling, and I knew it. But sometimes people have to settle. _

_A woman's heart is a lonely place._

_Before she croaked, my grandmother asked me to come stay the night at her apartment. I was ten. We didn't talk much all night long, until she got into bed. My grandfather had been dead for twenty years. It was a big bed and she was all alone in it. I sat in the chair next to her, waiting for her to say goodnight. Instead, she turned to look at me and said "A woman's heart is a lonely place." That night, she took the big sleep: she died the next morning._

_Her words nagged me for years. I've never really considered myself lonely; I'm too upfront and outgoing for that. But lately I've been thinking that I am in the business of finding out other people's secrets without ever divulging my own to anyone. I don't even let women get physically close with me; I get inside them, I taste them, but I never give them the chance to reciprocate. Not sure why. Maybe I'm still waiting for the right one to come along. Maybe I don't want anyone but a man ever touching me there. Maybe I just like having power over someone who doesn't mind being overpowered. Or maybe I have no heart and that's why it aches so much, so often. _

_My thoughts were disturbed when a startlingly attractive woman came and sat next to me. Her hair was swept up and her dress showed a bit more skin than was probably decent and I couldn't place her color right away. I probably eyed her for a bit too long; it looked like she smirked at me before pulling out a fan magazine with Ingrid Bergman on the cover. We struck up a conversation about movies. I find movie stars fascinating; they're like mysteries in their own way. Why do they act a certain way, dress a certain way, get picked for certain roles? As this woman and I talked, I realized the same names kept cropping up—Garbo, Dietrich, Hepburn: paragons of beautiful androgyny, all of them. _

"_I'm Claire, by the way," she finally said, extending her hand for me to shake._

"_Jane. So Claire, where are you off to at this hour?"_

"_A friend of mine is throwing a party."_

"_On the far side of town?"_

_She nodded slowly. "I haven't got a date, though…" Her hand brushed against my knee, and I got the message we had already been dancing around._

"_Would you like me to take you?" I asked in the lowest voice I could muster._

_A grin lit up her face. "That's sweet of you, Jane. But I wouldn't want you to get offended if I gave you the gate and went home with somebody else. You know, in case I meet someone there." _

"_Whoever she is will be a lucky girl, I'm sure." Normally I might have considered being this upfront to be throwing caution to the winds, but considering how Claire had been interacting with me, caution had really flown out the bus window as soon as she'd boarded. And if I had been entirely and completely off base (which I knew I wasn't), the bus was slowing down now anyway and I could get off if I wanted to._

_But as I knew it would, my brazenness amused her. "You should come along," she said, giving me the address. It was the one Frost had told me to go to. "Wear a mask. Tell them Claire sent you."_

_I shifted to get up, and she stood to let me pass. The seats were narrow, and as I passed her, her breasts touched my arm and I distinctly saw her shiver. "Maybe I'll see you around then," I husked before walking down the aisle. _

_The only reason I got out then was because apparently I needed to purchase a mask of some kind. I had no idea what to expect or what would be expected of me, but I did know of a pretty decent costume shop nearby. Problem: it was nearly 10:30 at night, and the store would have been closed for several hours. Fortunately I knew the proprietor, and furthermore I knew that he lived above his shop, so I just knocked incessantly until he came down to open the door. He and I went way back, to the day when I sent his brother up the river, allowing the boob to marry his brother's girl. His gratitude seemed to be wearing thin: when I told him what I wanted, he tossed a kid's Zorro mask at me and told me to scram. The chiseler—it was basically a black sash with two eye-holes cut into it. I could have made it._

_That said, it didn't look too bad on me. I went into the restroom of a nearby hash house to test it out and pulled my hair up into a bun. If only I had a mustache, I think I'd have pulled off Tyrone Power very convincingly. _

_By the time I got to the alley, it was a little after eleven. I slipped the mask back into place and knocked on the door. The little grille opened immediately, and a woman asked, "Password?" _

"_Claire sent me."_

_The door opened and I walked coolly inside, belying the fact that I thought I'd just died and went to heaven. There were more women packed into this dump than I'd ever seen in one place before, a bunch of girlies in gladrags. I didn't know where to look. I had to force myself to remember I was here on Frost's behalf, to find Mrs. Lawrence. It didn't take long: there wasn't much dark meat in the place. In fact, just the one. When I got close, I heard someone call her Fay, and that was that. Fay Lawrence was the woman I'd been looking for, and when I saw her necking with Claire, I got a pretty good idea what she was there for. _

_Still, I'd come all this way and gone to the trouble of procuring a mask. It'd be rude to drift right away. _

_So I made my way to the bar through the throng of masked women. I could only guess at why they were wearing masks—initially I figured it was so their identities would remain a secret, but someone had called Fay by her real name, so… what was the point? I got to the bar and ordered a scotch on the rocks. A redheaded chick with an outrageously enormous chest brought me the drink, and I asked her about the masks._

"_You must be new here," she said with a smirk. "Tonight's Thursday. Thursdays are disguise night. Believe it or not, some broads don't like it out there that they've been to a place like this. You think you're fine 'cause it's late and it's dark, but all it takes is one crazy dame chasing you down main street in the middle of the afternoon before your sap of a husband figures out where you've been stepping out. Women who don't care come whenever they want. Women who do care know enough to come only on Thursdays."_

_She then tried her hand at flirting with me, but I very rudely ignored her. That makes me sound like a jerk, but It wasn't really my fault. How could I focus on anyone but the gorgeous blonde that had just caught my eye from across the room? Her lips were as red and glaring as traffic light, but instead of telling me to stop, they were telling me to come quick. Her hair was swept up in some sort of hairstyle I'm sure has a fancy name I've never heard. Like her. _

_I was surrounded by floozies and Park Avenue playgirls, but this dame was different. I could tell right away she was one of the patrons who only came on Thursdays. Women who dressed that nice were clearly lousy with jack, and needed the protection. Her mask was feathered and ornamental, but even from this distance her big hazel eyes were visible, and they were on me, despite the fact that there were about five other women clamoring for her attention. She held her martini like it was a scepter, she had a body like Mata Hari, she moved the way I think an angel would have to if he lost his wings and had to sort of just glide around on foot. This was a babe I bet some mug would bump somebody off for. What was her story, where did she come from, what was she doing here? _

_Her attention had finally been nabbed by a woman who actually looked pretty similar to me, a lanky brunette with a wicked jaw. Did she want me to come over there and stake a claim? Or did she even care at all? Whatever her game was, I wasn't going to play it her way. I do things on my own terms. _

_So I turned and asked the woman next to me if she'd like to dance. There was music going, but not really an official dance floor; women were just sort of swaying together in one part of the room. It was so crowded that it could hardly be called dancing. Perfect. I don't like to dance. We got over there and I took one of her hands and put the other on her waist, and we were instantly pressed together like sardines in a can. It didn't take long for me to figure out my partner had gone over the edge with the rams a long time ago—the whiskey on her breath, especially in our close quarters, was overwhelming. But at this point I didn't care, because it was making her mighty grabby with those gloved flippers of hers, and she was handling my ass like she'd been doing it her whole life. _

_Here, I realized, was the difference. Women I'd touched in the past, I don't think they'd ever done it before. I enjoyed holding that power over them. But it was nice to have a change like this, where the other person involved knew what she was doing and did it well, even when she was lit. I was still in control; she let me guide her hands. She was trying to leave a mark on my neck, but I pulled back to kiss her lips, to taste the juice on her breath. It was good …but I knew I could do better. _

_I finished the song with her and then went back to the bar, but I didn't want to drink anymore. Best to stay sober, especially since technically I was still on the job. After a while I asked the bartender if they had a horn I could use, but she directed me to a public phone across the street. That's where I went to call a cab. It had gotten too crowded down there. I can't stay crowded places too long, no matter how attractive the company. I couldn't hardly hear myself think. _

_When the cab pulled up, I made my way over and got inside. I gave him Frankie's address, but before he could drive off, the door next to me opened up and in slipped that high-society broad with the red-light lips. _

"_Mind if we share?" she purred. _

_Seeing as the cab had already started going, I didn't really have a choice. Not that I would have turned her down, anyway. She was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen, and that was with half her face covered. You could practically smell the money on her, possibly aided by the fact that she was dripping in gold lamé and perfume I'd only ever caught a whiff of when I'd passed by the nicest department stores. _

"_Lovely party," she yawned._

_Boy, she was smoked. I don't think she could have walked a straight line if Saks depended on it. "Yeah, nice," I muttered. _

_ "You blew kind of early," she said. _

_ "It was just time to dust out."_

_ Out of nowhere, she lifted her legs and put them onto my lap. I looked up at the driver, but he seemed focused on the road. There was a plane of glass separating him from us, so he wouldn't be able to hear us, but he'd sure notice if he glanced in his rear view and saw us doing anything outside the realm of propriety. But maybe he'd just think we were friends, or sisters coming from a wacky costume party, if I kept from doing anything too randy. _

_ "Phew, if my feet aren't killing me," she moaned, letting one shoe dangle until it fell to the floor of the cab. I moved my own foot out of the way. Those heels looked dangerous enough to kill. _

_ "Maybe if you wore more sensible shoes," I whispered, taking her foot between my hands and gripping it tightly, "Your dogs wouldn't complain so much."_

_ She giggled at the lingo. I figure women like her talk properly most of the time. Giggling quickly gave way to moaning as I pressed harder, moving my hands up her leg, massaging it roughly. The noises coming out of her trap were starting to sound almost obscene, and even if the driver couldn't hear them, he would probably notice if the glass between us started fogging up. I recognized where this was going. I hadn't felt this way in the bar, even when I had been kissing that other lady. My body was telling me in no uncertain terms that it craved the feel of this woman right here, right now. Damn that barrier for being transparent. _

_ I moved on to her other leg and asked her something I had never asked another woman in this kind of situation before: "What's your name?"_

_ That was clearly a mistake. She withdrew her legs almost instantly, but rather than just sit up, she vaulted herself at me like the jaw of a mousetrap ready to kill. Her hands were on either side of my head, her body pressed up against mine, her eyes dark as the sky outside. She could tell she had startled me, and I could tell she was proud of that fact. But I couldn't help glancing up at the front of the cab, and she registered my concern. Still, I was sorry when she backed up slightly. And then I didn't know what to feel when she grabbed hold of one of my belt loops and dragged me closer. _

_ She leaned in close to my ear, and I was barely able to understand her when she whispered, "Call me Ishmael" and giggled again. She took my earlobe between her teeth and massaged it a bit before pushing away once more. _

_ "You're a real riot," I choked out. _

_ "Yes, I'm told that a lot," she sighed, still grinning. We were on Frankie's street, and I fished out my wallet to get the driver's fee. The woman moved close again and said, "Would you take my number if not my name?"_

_ One of her mitts was near my belt again. "You make a habit of giving your number to perfect strangers?" I asked._

_ "You know, it's funny," she said, "but just about every person I'm close to was a stranger at some point. Gimme a call sometime, huh? You know how to dial, don't you?" Her hand moved deftly between my legs, her thumb catching the zipper in the seam and dragging it down. I knew I was wet and she knew it too, and I could hear the smirk in her tone when she whispered into my neck, "You just put your finger in the little hole… and make circles." _

_ Every swear word that has ever been invented and a great number more which would not come into vogue for several decades went soaring through my head. I accidentally dropped half the change in my wallet before stumbling out of the hack, which had finally come to a stop. I paid the driver and ran out of there—or tried to. My legs felt about as sturdy as the little houses Tommy used to make out of oatmeal when he was a kid, and I tripped several times going up the stairs to Frankie's apartment. Frankie was out of town visiting a friend from the service and had asked me to stop by and feed his fish, Napoleon. What a joke. _

_ But Napoleon would have to wait a second. I had to finish what that woman had started, by myself, which was usually how I preferred doing things. This time, though …I don't think I'd have minded if she could've finished the job... _

And now she's got me gumshoeing for her. Maura Isles. Unbelievable. We were behind the eight ball, both of us. I knew where she'd been that Thursday night. She may have been a regular customer, for all I knew. When she made her business proposition to me, I got the sense that she found the danger exciting. It could be fun having someone know her secret, to play around with. Well, she better watch herself. She's gonna get played right back.

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**A/N**: And yes...the next Calamity Jane chapter is in progress. This update just snuck up on me.


	3. The Entendre Singular

**A/N**: I feel obligated to point out that the telephone/dialing line from the last chapter is far too clever to have been thought up by me. It was used in the brilliant parody of all noirs, _Dead M__en Don't Wear Plaid_ (the line itself, of course, a twist on "you know how to whistle, don't you, Steve?" I may have to actually use that one, too...) References in this chapter include a cut scene from _Spartacus_, _Dead End_, and _Batman the Animated Series_ (Christopher Nolan, Shmristopher Shmolan.)

* * *

It took half a day of snooping around to learn that Adam Fairfield was seeing someone besides Maura. I don't think any gumshoe in the world could figure out why on earth he felt the need to cheat on a dish like Maura Isles, but thankfully that wasn't exactly a mystery I was being paid to solve. What a dumb mug that jerk was, though. Anyhow, I gathered that nobody had seen him since he left to go sailing five days ago. Didn't look good.

Sometimes it was hard not to just ask Frankie for help, but that would be lazy. Frankie's a cop, legitimate. Good boy, that one. Got a mug like a puppy, which works for him because dolls fall over him for it and thugs never see his lead poison coming. Ma's gets awful bitter about his job, though; she asked why he couldn't find a business with a little less blood in it. "Only difference from other businesses is that in this case, the blood shows," he said. I thought that was a pretty good comeback. For the record, Frankie's the only one in my family who knows how I actually make a living. My parents and Tommy all think I'm a stenographer, because I'm pretty good when it comes to making a few notes on a typewriter. Makes for an easy alibi. Korsak helpfully pitches in and pretends to be my boss—which he is, but not for any damn typing.

While I'm on the subject of my boss, Korsak's actually the only person who knows about my interest in chasing skirts. It was sort of an accident the way he found out. I had been waiting on some pretty important documents to arrive at our little office building, and when they finally got in, I wasn't there. Korsak tried to drop a dime to me, but my telephone line had been disconnected recently and I'd forgotten to tell him. He was in sort of a foul mood on account of my not answering the blower, and I think due to some other stuff as well, so he drove down to my apartment and just waltzed right in without knocking on the door. He caught me in the somewhat unprofessional and potentially compromising position of having a waitress's gams over my shoulders while she sat on my couch and I knelt on the floor in front of her. Had he come in about five seconds later, he'd have seen my face inside her skirt, but at the moment he'd arrived, I'd only just been about to start my work. He just stood there and didn't say a thing, didn't move, didn't blink. After realizing he wasn't about to call in the bulls or otherwise act, the waitress grabbed her purse and ran out of there. I stayed on my knees on the floor. Korsak came and knelt next to me.

"Wanna tell me what the hell that was about, Jane?" he asked.

"The hell do you think?" I muttered.

And then he lectured me. Not on the evils of what I'd been doing, but on being careful about my choices. Turns out his old lady had an affair with a woman. Loved this broad so much, she up and left Korsak for her, basically, moving up to Canada. It wouldn't have been so bad if she hadn't taken her son, too, who was like the kid Korsak never had. Broke his heart. I was afraid he was gonna chew me out, but he just put an arm around me and said if I thought I could only ever be happy with a woman, please don't get shackled to a guy. It wouldn't be fair to anyone. I tried to tell him I'm still interested in hombres, but he didn't really listen. In fact, he hasn't brought it up since. Don't blame him, I guess.

Anyhow—back to the case.

The last place Adam Fairfield had been seen was a classy seafood joint by the harbor with the company of a tall redhead. Since I'd made the effort of finding this place, I decided to take a lunch break and ponder the possibility of the existence of a looker more beautiful than Maura Isles. Of course, I realize I'm being shallow. There are plenty of things that could have attracted Fairfield to someone else. Brains, personality, a willingness to laugh at his stupid jokes.

That had to be it. There was no other way another doll could compete with the getaway sticks on Maura Isles, long and lean and toned from the dangerously pointed shoes she seemed to have an unnatural affinity for. No other woman had hair that sleek, like a river; lips that luscious, like two rose petals waiting to be plucked; or knockers that could probably knock a guy off with their sheer size and perfection. An image slipped in my mind of Fairfield smothering himself in that chest, and I felt the familiar twinges of envy settle in my stomach like soldiers invading a beach. So I substituted myself for Fairfield and the mental image became so pleasant that I worried it soon may have been indecent for me to remain in public.

But then my waiter arrived and offered a brief distraction while he took my order. Brief.

As soon as he was gone, I went back to thinking about Maura. I still couldn't believe someone who looked like her could be anything but man-crazy. I couldn't help smirking at the thought of Fairfield marrying a woman who wasn't even interested in him sexually. Of course, then I realized I might be overstepping a bit. Maybe she's like me, maybe she still goes for men. (Never mind that I haven't been with a man since 1942. I just haven't found any I liked.) Or maybe she's just a goody round-heels: she looks and acts like a decent, normal woman, but beneath that façade is burning an unquenchable lust that she will quench with anyone regardless of class or gender.

This job's getting me cynical.

"Detective Rizzoli?"

Lo and behold, there she appeared. "Miss Isles."

"Mind if I join you?"

I gestured to the empty seat across from me. "Not at all, go ahead and chuck your chest up to the wood," I said, slapping the top of the wooden table. That was probably an idiotic move on my part. Nothing to gum up a private investigation like inviting your gorgeous client to have lunch with you. "What brings you out here on this fine day?"

"I've been craving fish," she sighed, sitting herself down. "And besides, this is the restaurant where Adam brings all his little whores, the heel. I wondered how long it would take you to find it."

I masked my surprise at her frankness rather well. "So you know about that."

"Of course."

Her tone made it sound as if Adam hadn't tried keeping these dalliances a secret. "And does _he _know, um… where you spend your Thursday nights?"

That finally put a shove in her clutch, and she turned her slightly annoyed hazel eyes on me. Have I not mentioned those eyes yet? Like liquid jade and copper swirled together. "I'm sure I don't know what you mean," she said. "I don't have a designated destination every Thursday."

Maybe she was lying, or maybe the time I saw her there had been her first or solitary journey. "My mistake," I said softly.

The waiter came back to tell me that my order would be finished soon, and then asked Maura if there was anything she wanted. Instead of ordering any fish, she just said she'd have a little of whatever I was having.

"Oh go on," I said. "While you're here, you might as well take a sniff from the barrel."

With this encouragement, Maura started to chat with the waiter about the wine list, a slip of paper I usually ignored as if it were a bill. While they talked, I found myself listening to the conversation going on at the table next to us. A woman there was loudly talking to her escort about a recent trip she took to Paris. They ate snails in Paris, she said. Can you believe it? And after a while, she'd gotten so accustomed to the taste that she ate them every day. She somehow managed to keep the conversation on snails for another minute or so, until her date finally paid the bill and they left.

Maura noticed I had been listening. "Well, well," she said, idly folding her napkin in her lap. "Sounds to me like she really went for snails."

"Yeah."

She glanced over at me and I can only assume it was because of my voice. It had taken on a lower register, the way it often did when I couldn't help noticing my faculties were all aroused. It wasn't my fault. She was wearing that perfume again and a diamond pendant hung between breasts that were just out of sight. Maura cleared her throat and asked "You ever try snails?" The words rolled off her tongue like honey, and under the table, she her foot nudged my leg.

Something in her tone and the action she'd just taken clued me in to the response she was looking for, unless that foot graze was accidental. "Yeah, I have. Not a fanatic, though, like that girl. How about you?"

"Don't care for them," she said promptly, moving on to my other leg and smirking when she saw me bite my lip. I'm sure that foot move had been an accident in the way that one of Capone's bullets hitting an enemy in the face would have been an accident. She continued: "If I'm going to eat something that looks as though it slimed its way out of primordial ooze, I'd go for oysters."

I'm guessing she saw our waiter, who had just walked up behind me with my dish of oysters. He left, and I whispered, "Same here. I don't think there's anything more divine than an oyster that's just been opened."

Finally she looked at me and held my gaze, a hint of a smile on her full lips. "Do you prefer your oysters raw?" When I nodded, she continued, "Perhaps you could help me with something. I admit when it comes to eating oysters, I'm…" She chuckled airily, with faux innocence. "Woefully inexperienced. Indulge me in my curiosity—do you chew at all, or just swallow?"

I couldn't believe this dame. Her smile couldn't have looked more predatory if it had been on an alligator. But I answered her anyway: "I think it depends on the individual. Some people use their fingers to pry an oyster open." I shook my head. "I rarely do."

"You don't use a fork, do you?" Maura asked.

"I use my tongue." She shifted ever so slightly, and I felt her legs cross under the table. I wanted to make her squirm. I wanted to make her beg, to come out and say something to me. I continued: "You've got to hold it in your mouth for at least a moment, just to savor it. Every oyster tastes just a little different, you see. And then you could simply swallow whole, if you wanted to, but chewing gives you so much more flavor."

She stared at me for a very long time, and I somberly returned the gaze. One of us had to crack, and it wasn't going to be me. "Thanks for the tip," she said with a small nod. "Mind if I try yours? One of your oysters, I mean?"

I nudged the plate in her direction. "Be my guest."

Watching her eat that oyster was one of the most sinful experiences I have ever had. If they'd tried putting it on film, it would've been slapped down by the Hays Office faster than an interracial love scene in an opium den between a dope fiend and a gangster's moll.

"You look like you're enjoying that," I couldn't help saying.

She "mmm"ed and nodded, lifting her eyes to meet mine. "Your advice was quite helpful." She had finished the oyster and was smiling at me so her teeth glistened. I had never really noticed them before now.

"Nice pearly whites," I said.

"Thank you. I used to have a brace to make them straight. Money well spent, I see."

"A brace to make your teeth straight?" I snorted. "I could do that with one wallop."

Again I had succeeded in putting a small dent in her cool manner. She raised her eyebrows at me. "You think I need to be slapped?" she asked in a tone of voice that might have indicated she was about to ask me for a sexual favor.

"Don't you think so?" I shot back. "I don't mind telling you this, Miss Isles. It's pretty suspect, your coming to this place when you know it's where Adam brought his girls. And it's the last place he was seen before he disappeared. And you haven't exactly done a stellar job of hiding your displeasure with the fact that he was seeing these… _whores_, as you put it."

"Are you trying to insinuate that I had a hand in his disappearance?" she asked skeptically. "Why would I pay you two grand just to tell me I did it?"

"You're smart, aren't you?" I asked.

"I've got a degree and everything."

"That's not what I meant."

"Oh, isn't it?" she asked, batting her eyelashes and going for that fake coquette bit again.

I sat back in my chair and laughed a bit. "Boy, you know, the papers sure have got you wrong. Judging by what I read about you, I thought you were a wet firecracker." I saw her glance around, looking for a fraction of a second like she was anxious somebody might overhear me. At the beginning of our conversation she had basically denied being at the club I'd first met her at, and then essentially tried propositioning me under the table not a minute later. She was running more hot and cold than a gowed-up goon trying to talk his way out of an arrest. Maura was trying to get in my pants without having to come out and say it. If she had her way, I would be a mess seeing a head doctor by the time this was all over. "You're driving me crazy already," I whispered, mostly to myself.

Unfortunately, she heard me. "Excuse me? Please, detective, stay professional," she said in a playful voice that made me want to slap that smug look right off her face, then bite her lips until I could taste her blood on my tongue.

"I told you, we don't run a professional business," I said, knowing full well that she had remembered this. I could tell by the smirk on her face. I leaned over across the table and lowered my voice again. "I don't have to stay remotely 'professional' if it's not my inclination. So I'm not about to choke myself to keep from saying that half of me wants to strangle you."

"And what does the other half want to do?" she asked smoothly, knowing I didn't mean it.

"Hit you with a truck."

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**A/N**: reviews are to writers as double entendres are to this genre. they keep us going. thanks for reading, and thanks for alerting/favoriting. if you've got any noir recommendations, also please drop a line. I'm trying to get into that genre again!


	4. A New Assignment

**A/N**: Just a little (very little) something until the next Calamity update. References in this chapter include the Trace Bullet segments of _Calvin & Hobbes_, _The Blue Dahlia_, _Leave Her to Heaven_, and a hilarious but overlooked show called _O'Grady_. (I'll love you forever if you tell me you've seen it.)

* * *

A stiff washed up on shore the next morning. It was Adam Fairfield.

So far as I was concerned, my work was done. It had been my job to find out what had happened to Adam, not find his killer. I went to the Fairfields with the news, only to return to my office and find one of them waiting for me.

"Detective Rizzoli?" He was young, handsome, and a sharp dresser. You know, a sap.

"Mr. Fairfield. Didn't I just leave your grieving family?"

"I believe so."

"You weren't there."

"Oh, you're good, detective."

I narrowed my eyes at him. I don't like when jerks like this guy try to get smart. "Is there a reason you're here, Mr. Fairfield?"

"As you're aware, Maura Isles was engaged to be married to my brother."

"Yes, I was aware of this fact. Are you here to inform me that this union is to continue anyway?" Let him have a bit of his own attitude thrown back at him.

"Cute, detective. Actually I wanted to make sure you knew my family isn't interested in terminating your services yet. We'd like you to keep an eye on Maura."

"You don't plan on doing that yourself?"

He looked like he was about to answer, then just leaned back and smirked at me, putting the tips of his too-clean fingers together. "Maura and I are good friends. But there are places a woman goes where a man can't follow."

"You'd like me to bathe with her?"

"I'd like you to be around her around the clock, detective."

"I'm not a babysitter, Mr. Fairfield. I'm a detective. Now if you please, the door's that way."

I had looked down to read some papers on my desk, but Garrett slammed the end of his fancy walking stick on top of them. When I glanced back at him, his oily smile was still in place, like he was a cobra who had just honed in a particularly stupid piece of prey. What a chump I was turning out to be.

"I don't think you're following me," he said. "We'd like you to investigate Adam's murder. Cops always make a mess of things, and I understand you always get the job done. Discreetly. You married, detective?"

"No."

"Got a boyfriend?"

"Still overseas."

"Well then. I assure you there's little else you could be doing that would be more stimulating than keeping an eye on Maura. I'm afraid she could be next."

"Next? Mr. Fairfield, it hasn't been confirmed yet that anything out of the ordinary happened to your brother. We don't know that he's been bumped off. It could have just been a boating accident."

Garrett tossed a wad of bills on my desk that'd be thick enough to knock the toupee off an old dandy. "Detective, are you saying you _don't _want enough cush to buy an apartment on Fifth Avenue?"

I reached for the wad of spinach and thumbed through it. "That's where you and I are different, Mr. Fairfield. I'd blow all this dough on bangtails."

"Gambling's an ugly habit, detective, but I can't dictate what you do with my money. All I can do is give it to you to find my brother's killer and keep safe the only woman he ever really cared about."

I raised my eyebrow at that, and Garrett kept his face remarkably composed. I got the impression he knew his brother screwed around, but it wouldn't have sounded quite as romantic to say so. I've only known this mug for about two minutes and I already hate him. I hate his smug puss and the stupid cane he wields like a scepter. But mostly what I hated was that he clearly knew from the moment he made his offer that I wouldn't be able to resist.

"I'll have to clear my schedule," I said, nodding at the entirely blank calendar on the wall behind me.

"Glad to have you aboard, detective," Garrett said, standing up and holding out his hand to shake mine. I stood up as well, and he continued, "I can't tell you how assuring it'll be to have another broad keeping an eye on Maura. In fact, she requested you specifically."

"So why isn't she here herself?"

"She's working."

"Where?"

Garrett tapped his nose and smiled at me. "Consider it your first assignment."

Out of respect for the dead, I declined to point out that my first assignment had been to find his brother. Garrett swept out of my office and closed the door with a bang, finally leaving me alone. Alone with the only real friends I had in this world: my pistol and a bottle of whiskey. I always keep the pistol loaded. The whiskey leaves me loaded. Symbiosis, I think it's called.

I had been surprised to hear a woman like Maura Isles worked. She certainly didn't need to do it for a living, and especially now that the war was over, it's not as if the working world was exactly clamoring for women. Aside from that, she had just played the part of the grieving widow that morning when I'd given the news to her and the Fairfields about Adam. Guess she hadn't been too distressed to call in to work. Maybe those had been crocodile tears. Or maybe I was being a jerk and she just wanted to get her mind off everything.

Within the next twenty minutes, I had located Maura's job. She worked at a hospital just a few blocks north of me. So I headed on over and asked a receptionist where I might find Maura Isles. This doll didn't look too bright, and she definitely looked surprised that somebody was trying to find Maura, but she just shrugged and led me to a tiny office down the hall.

I knocked and Maura's voice told me to come in. I nudged the door open and leaned against the frame, waiting for her to look up at me. She was dressed in a nurse's uniform, all white with one of those funny hats on her head that made her look like a capsule. Finally she looked up, and after giving me a very long up-and-down look, invited me to come in and shut the door.

"Nice place," I said, sitting down across from her desk.

"Thank you."

"Didn't know you worked."

"Yes, well. I was a nurse in the war and couldn't quite kick the habit once I got home."

"The Fairfields let you work?"

Maura narrowed her eyes at me, then smiled. "If there's one thing the Fairfields like more than money and propriety, it's patriotism. They were proud to have someone engaged to Adam going overseas and saving lives—which I did, frequently."

"Bully for you, Dr. Isles."

"It's nurse. But thank you."

"You know, I tried doing my part for our country but my mother wouldn't let me."

"She didn't want you in combat?"

"Hell, _I _didn't want to be in combat. I wanted to join up with the AAGBL. All-American Girls Baseball League."

Maura snorted and finally put down the clipboard she'd been sporadically adding notes to. "Sounds contradictory. Women don't play baseball."

"I guess they don't. I'm pretty good at softball, though. This job I've got now, my parents know nothing about it. But it'd probably be a bit harder to hide something like that baseball league."

"Do you do everything your mother tells you?"

"I take it into consideration. Then I _usually_ do the opposite. That's how I came to start pitching for my brothers' games now and then. I may have joined that league if Korsak hadn't offered me this job. It was too tempting."

"More tempting than being on the mound?" Maura asked with faux innocence. For just a second, I wasn't sure if she knew what she'd just intimated, but then she batted her eyelashes at me and I had to laugh. "You have impressive restraint, detective."

"Why'd you want me?" I asked. "Garrett Fairfield just paid me a shovel-load of Spondulix to keep my eye on you. Said you asked for me."

"Well, what can I say?" Maura purred. "I feel safer when you're around."

"You've been with me for all of about two hours, collectively. You don't know me or anything about me."

"Every person knows about a woman like you, Jane. The trick is finding you."

She licked her lips and I knew I had just done the same (with my own, that is). "You sure you want me shadowing you, Dr. Isles?"

Maura chuckled and stood up, walking over to the coat rack near my chair. "Don't be a weak sister, detective. You've been hired to solve this case and stick close to me."

I startled her by violently standing up and kicking my chair aside, taking two steps over to her and putting one palm on the wall next to her head and resting my other hand on my hip. Maura had gasped softly and was pressed against the wall, looking up at me through hooded eyes.

"Close?" I whispered. "_Close_? Close is a bedtime story daddies tell their little girls." I leaned in further, drunk on the way her eyes were fixed on my lips. "You don't know a thing about my restraint, Dr. Isles."

"I guess I keep underestimating you and your avowed unprofessionalism," she whispered. Her mouth was close enough to mine that her breath could seep through my parted lips. Somebody knocked on the closed door, and Maura jumped. "Just a moment," she called out, and I stepped back, freeing her. "I don't know what exactly is on your mind, detective," she said softly, walking towards the door. "But you've just reminded me of an old saying we had in the corps."

If this dame had been alive a few centuries ago in Salem, they'd have burned her at the stake. "And what's that?"

With her hand on the knob, Maura winked at me and said, "You sleep alone, you sleep with Hitler."


	5. Point of No Return

**A/N**: Okay, this chapter ended an entirely different way than what I'd intended, and it's all thanks to tonight's episode. I was seriously frustrated by the lack of gayzzoli and had to do something about it. References in this chapter include _Hollow Triumph_, _The Glass Key_, _Out of the Past_, _Nocturne_, _Follow Me Quietly, The Web, They Drive By Night, This Gun For Hire, _and one of my favorite guilty pleasure movies_, Faster Pussycat Kill Kill _(which provided the quote the title of this chapter is from).

* * *

An hour later, Maura and I were standing outside a movie theater, reading the marquee. She had just gotten off work, and after I'd asked what her routine usually was, she said she often went for a flicker, so here we were. She was tired of war pictures, which, despite our recent victory, were still being produced as commonly and wantonly as baby bunnies. But here were a couple of rabbits who weren't taking the bait. We had found a little dive playing a Hitchcock movie, and Maura asked if I'd like to go.

Okay. Her fiancé had been found dead that morning, and Maura was trying to buy my ticket to go see a movie (I insisted on dishing out for my own). We entered the theater about halfway through a Mickey Mouse cartoon.

"Aw, damn," I muttered. "We're late."

The theater wasn't too crowded. Maura led the way to the end of one of the back rows. "You sound disappointed, detective," she said, and I could hear the smirk in her voice. "I wouldn't have pegged you for being a Disney fan."

"They're always good for a laugh," I said. "But I've seen this one already." I kept my voice down. We could still talk quietly without chance of being overheard; the nearest patrons were sitting a good seven or eight rows in front of us. "Is this your idea of an escape, Maura?"

"How do you mean?" she whispered, taking off her gloves.

"I mean your fiancé is dead and you don't seem too bothered about it. From my perspective as a flatfoot, that doesn't look so good… unless you're just trying to hide it? Your feelings? Because you don't have to. I'd understand."

"There's only one thing you need to understand," Maura said, staring down at her lap. "Adam Fairfield and I barely knew each other. My family has known his for years, but I've hardly ever had a real conversation with him. He was wrapped up in himself, in his boating, in his job. He talked, I listened. He treated me more like a secretary or an audience than a fiancé. A woman, even." She shifted, taking off her jacket and glancing at me. "You know how women are, detective. Something happens to us when we feel we aren't wanted."

I raised an eyebrow at her tone. She sounded cooler than a block of ice dropped in the Arctic. "Something that gives you the urge to kill?"

"This is not a confession. I'm being honest with you because playing the part of the grieving widow doesn't suit me," Maura continued. "I'm no good at lying, anyway. I'm sorry Adam's dead. I truly am, for his family's sake. But not for mine. I can't let this kill me. And it hasn't. It's just another card dealt from the bottom of the deck. Once this gets out, everyone's going to think I did it. That's how the public imagination works, isn't it? There's your story. Fat millionaire offed by his uninterested fiancé."

"You're a bitter little lady, aren't you?"

She chuckled dryly. "It's a bitter little world. You want the girl next door? Go next door."

I found myself not caring much about who bumped off Adam Fairfield anymore. The only mystery I wanted to solve was Maura Isles. She had me pulled in like one of those Chinese finger traps they sell for a penny: I was stuck and had no idea how the hell to get out unless she helped.

"I don't want to go next door," I said. "I'm gonna stay right on your porch for a while."

"Say, doesn't your nose ever get sore from sticking it in other people's business all the time?"

This broad gave off more mixed signals than a Boy Scout still trying to master his flags. "Depends on who asked me to put it there."

Maura smirked and tweaked my nose. "Well, it's awfully cute, as far as noses go."

A boy and a girl walked in, passed us, and Maura shifted away. The cartoon ended and the feature started.

Turned out to be a pretty decent picture. Aside from being the only man my mother has openly admitted she would be willing to leave my father for, Cary Grant's a good actor, too. Ingrid Bergman was divine as always. Good Lord, that accent of hers played on my emotions like an accordion that was never quite in tune. It reminded me of the first time I had noticed if not fully acknowledged that it was possible to be aroused by other women: Garbo opened her mouth and talked in a voice that was just a bit deeper, harsher, than Bergman's. I went to see her first talkie about six times, just to listen to her. I tried patterning my voice after hers—not the accent, of course, but that husky quality to it, like all she did was drink whiskey, smoke cigars, and steal hearts. I figured if I could talk like that, I could get people to do whatever I wanted them to. Turned out I was basically right.

Grant and Bergman were melting the screen, but about halfway through the movie, I couldn't focus on them anymore. Maura was getting cute. At one point she slid off one of her heeled shoes, muttering by way of explanation that her dogs were sore. She crossed her legs and it only took a moment for her stockinged foot to find my leg. Every fiber in my body clenched like a vise, a vise that twisted tighter when Maura hooked her foot beneath the bottom of my trouser leg and lifted it up, running the silk on her toes along the bare skin of my leg.

She kept up this torture for quite a few minutes, and I found myself wondering if she had ever been a POW overseas. It certainly seemed like she had learned a trick or two. Half the fun was in the fact that we were in a public place, I know, but I wanted to be able to at least chew the fat, too.

"Shall I take you someplace else?" I asked in a low voice.

Her response was a purr: "You're going to find it very easy to take me anywhere, detective."

I stood up and she followed, taking a moment to get her shoe back on. We took a Hackensack to a little dump on the other side of town. Or tried to, anyway. Once Maura saw the place from inside the cab, she looked hesitant, and I went ahead and told her to choose a different venue if she wanted. Taking her someplace else might be easy, but getting her to stay could be another matter entirely. So she gave our driver a new address. I should've known better than to try and take a class-act like Maura to a hovel like that, anyway. Wouldn't do for some news rag to snap a photo of her there.

We wound up in the restaurant of a hotel that looked about as fancy as what you might've expected to see on the Titanic. Chandeliers hung every few feet from the ceiling, their crystals gleaming like perilous hail frozen in time, suspended above us. I wasn't dressed for a joint like this, that much was obvious. It was made even more obvious when the pansy of a host said he wouldn't even so much as look our way unless I was dressed appropriately.

I wasn't sure if Maura had been trying to humiliate me or not, but I was less ruffled than a starched shirt in a good breeze. We left the hotel, and Maura said, "Have you got something you think you could wear? I'm craving a steak from this place like nobody's business."

"Yes, believe it or not, Dr. Isles, I do own dresses." She raised a disbelieving eyebrow as we returned to our harried cab driver. "Okay, dress."

"We're going shopping," Maura said to the driver. "Take us t—"

"No, we're not," I cut in, giving him my address before going into the back of the cab, where we were separated by a plane of glass. Maura looked absolutely peeved, irrationally annoyed at losing the chance to play dress-up with an overgrown Ginny doll. "Wipe that sour look off your face, babe. You're spoiled, you know that? It's about time you learned you can't get everything you want."

"You think you know what I want, detective?" she asked in a girlish voice.

"You bet that tight ass of yours I do, honey," I growled. "You're slumming. Well guess what, I don't go for slummers. You think you're too good for me. That's why, when we get to my apartment, you're going to request that I pick up my dress and then we go back to _your _place so nobody sees you getting out of a cab on my street."

Maura looked a little disdainful that I had called her bluff. In my defense, it hadn't been a very good bluff; at least, it had been a fairly transparent one. "You're getting a big kick out of making me feel cheap, aren't you?" she asked, leaning back in her seat. "Well, maybe I had it coming."

"After soliciting me, flirting with me, and touching me in the ways you have? Yeah, maybe a little."

"_Soliciting? _The Fairfields are paying you to keep an eye on me. You talk big, detective, but you're going to have a hard time holding me."

"It'll be a hell of a lot of fun trying, then," I said in the best husk I could. "You trying to make me go soft, Dr. Isles? Save your oil. I don't go soft for anybody."

"Then you must be one hell of an actress, detective, because you could've fooled me."

That was enough to make a bulldog bust his chain. If it weren't for the glass between us and the cab driver, I'd have wiped that smirk off Maura's face with a kiss that would knock her out cold. I had an insane need to shut her up, to prove myself, to make her beg for something. Maura Isles had never had to beg for anything in her blessed life. I was determined to change that.

We reached my apartment and I ran inside while Maura waited in the cab. I snatched an old black dress out of my closet and only barely remembered to double back for a pair of dress shoes. I got heels that would give me even more height, more leverage, over Maura. It was a long, silent ride back to her part of town. When we reached her place, she paid the driver and sent him away.

"I'm sorry; aren't we going to need him soon?" I asked.

She hooked her arm through mine and led the way up to her house. "No. It's going to take a little while for you to get dressed and ready. I don't like to keep men waiting if I can avoid it."

At first I thought I'd stumbled onto a Hollywood set when she opened the door of her house and ushered me inside. She shooed away her maid and led me up a staircase so expansive I kept expecting a princess or at least a movie star to come walking down it in an elaborate gown and elbow-length gloves. But we passed nobody, and before I knew it, I was in Maura Isles' private quarters. I was a little surprised at how old-fashioned the interior was, sort of an art-deco feel, but I figured maybe she had been living here a while and just never felt like changing the décor. She sat herself down on the edge of her enormous bed like a queen taking her throne, crossing her legs and resting her hands delicately on her knee.

"This turn into a peep show?" I asked.

"You tell me," she said back.

"Do what you like."

Her eyes remained defiantly open as I shrugged off my blazer, tossing it onto her floor and unbuttoning my shirt.

"Do you believe in love at first sight?" she asked me in a very serious voice.

I shrugged, finishing the last of the buttons. "Saves time, doesn't it?"

She smirked. God, those dimples. They were almost carved in place.

When I had gotten down to my undershirt, Maura stood up and walked slowly towards me. I froze. She knew I was watching her every movement, even as she kept her eyes on mine with steel and determination. I could smell her perfume, easily a quarter a bottle from any good department store. I could smell that, mixed in with something a little cheaper that came free courtesy of Mother Nature for most any customer. I blinked and she was pressed right up against me, still holding my gaze as her hands touched my ass, her fingers grazing it.

"How badly do you want to go back to that restaurant?" I whispered.

She bit her lip. "They make a divine medium steak." I snorted, and she pursed her lips. "Don't you like your steak medium, detective?"

"I like a steak that bites back."

Her hands moved over to the side pockets of my slacks, and she carefully pulled my gun out of one of them. "Why do you carry this around?" she asked, running her finger down the barrel.

"Has a way off making me feel taller. But I don't think I need it right now."

"Why detective," she said coquettishly, letting the gun fall onto my long-forgotten blazer. "I don't think I get your point."

My arms trapped her in a possessive embrace and my voice was nothing but a deep growl: "The point is of no return, and you've reached it."

Tonight she was getting a rare steak. The Jane Rizzoli special.

I crushed my lips against that smartass mouth of hers, kissing it with the demanding desperation of a full platoon of lust-starved soldiers. She caved instantly; I felt her body go weak at the knees as I commanded more of her, pushing my tongue into her mouth. Manicured nails dug into my back, spreading outwards and yanking my suspenders off my shoulders. I could feel more than hear Maura practically panting, and I knew I had her.

I walked her backwards, and we fell onto that disgustingly huge bed of hers, never breaking the kiss. She tried to turn us over, to get off her back, but I held her arms down firmly, moving my lips to her neck. This gave her the space and the air to breathe even more loudly and with greater labor, throwing in a moan here and there. She gasped when I forced a hand under her shirt, pressing the bare skin of my palm against her stomach, pushing on it as I sank my teeth into her shoulder, marking her.

She cried out, and I brought my lips back to hers again to keep her quiet. The last thing we needed right now was that mouse of a maid of hers to come running in. If Maura got much louder, that maid would probably think her boss was getting attacked. Well, she was. But this was an attack Maura had been yearning for. Her hands reached my belt and she tried desperately to unbuckle it.

That was when I pulled away. Completely. I knelt over her for a few moments, relishing in the sight of her looking absolutely ravished, chest heaving, eyes dark and wide, mouth open. She looked wild but confused, especially when I stood up and re-fastened my belt.

"You're going to make me beg?" she asked through heavy breaths, propping herself up on her elbows. The unspoken _"for sex?"_ rang in my ears louder than a church bell.

This was as tortuous for me as it was for her, but I wasn't going to let her get off this easy. "Yeah," I said. "I am."

* * *

**A/N**: Please review. They're appreciated, and how.


	6. Trapped in a Whirlpool

**A/N**: Phew! Now that the western is done, I hope to get a little further with this story and the college AU. I think I've finally come up with a way to give this a plot, rather than just have it add up to a bunch of innuendo-filled scenes. That said, it could still sort of read as a bunch of strung-together noir quotes. Remember that key to this genre is never really knowing where the femme fatale (Maura, in this case) is coming from or where she'll end up. If you feel a little confused, don't sweat it. You probably should be.

* * *

I had underestimated how much Maura wanted me.

After bringing our somewhat heated moment to a stop faster than a kid just learning how to brake his car, I figured she'd want me out. I was wrong.

"What are you doing, detective?" she asked a little breathlessly as I started buttoning up my shirt again. "You've already been told that ensemble won't be appropriate for the place we're dining at tonight."

"Yeah, well, I kinda thought that since I just made it clear I won't be dining _here_, you'd want me to blow this joint," I said.

"Some detective _you _are," she snorted, sitting up and smoothing out her shirt, tucking it back into her skirt. "I'm still hungry."

"Yeah, I bet you are," I couldn't help snidely throwing back at her.

"I still want to take on a steak," she clarified, walking past me towards her drawer. "And I'd really rather not dine alone. Are you going to be faithful and keep our date or not?"

"Oh, honey, you have no idea how faithful and obedient I can be," I said in a low voice. She looked over her shoulder at me, raising an eyebrow and prompting me to add, "for a price."

She smirked, pulling a pair of stockings out of her top drawer. Apparently deciding to ignore the last thing I'd said, Maura walked back over to her bed and conversationally muttered, "I'm glad we came back here, anyway. My legs get cold at night." She put her foot on the bed and started pulling the silk stocking onto it, slowly, tantalizingly going up her leg. Her skirt was hiked up in the process, giving me a good look at her thigh. If I were a real sucker, I might've let myself moan. Instead, I remained quiet as a boy in English class as Maura pulled on her other stocking. She was fire-alarm hot, and she knew it.

"Very good, detective," she murmured, walking past me towards the door of her room. "You go ahead and change. I'll be downstairs."

Something about the presumptuousness of her tone bothered me. I'd been the one to stop our kissing, but she was _still _acting like the one who had the ball in her corner. Maybe she did. Maybe I was just another helpless fly caught in her web and hadn't figured it out yet. She could make me feel like I was losing even if I knew I was winning. "I don't think I like your manner, Dr. Isles."

She turned at the door, surveying me like I was a mildly amusing cartoon. "Well it's a good thing I'm not selling it, then."

It only took me about two minutes to join her downstairs again. She fascinated me too much for me to just take it on the heel and toe and get out of there. Apparently it was her chauffer's day off: we got another cab to head on back to the hotel we'd tried dining at earlier.

"You don't get frustrated easily, do you?" I guessed.

With a mirthless laugh she said, "You mean that stunt you pulled back there? Please, babe. If I got frustrated easily, there's no way in hell I'd have been able to stay engaged to Adam Fairfield for as long as I did."

"Oh, yeah?"

"Yeah. That fella was one dumb lug, I'll tell you that." It was amazing to me that even when using such terms, Maura could still sound so sophisticated. "You know, the way I figure, there was something queer about him. Maybe something wrong with him. He saw a lot of girls, I know—in the biblical sense, if you catch my drift. But never me. I think he just paid them for the chance to do things to them. Touch them. He was never really dizzy about anyone. _Nobody _was good enough to get past the Adam Fairfield museum."

"Museum?"

"Rules. You know—looky, no touching."

I laughed sourly. "Boy, you know, I've met a lot of hard-boiled eggs in my time, but you—you're twenty minutes."

"I take that as compliment," she said in a lofty voice. "This is how the war made me, Detective Rizzoli. You have to grow hard to handle it. There was a girl in my corps who cried all the time. Anything could set her off. She shouldn't have been there. We found out later some of the boys, the younger ones, had a game going over which of them could get her to cry the fastest. You know why that is, detective? Men like seeing women cry. It makes them feel superior."

I shifted closer to her. "That's only if you let them. I get the feeling you've never done that, especially with Fairfield."

"Why did you agree to take this job?" Maura asked suddenly. "I mean, after you found Adam. Nobody knows whether it was an accident yet or whether he got knocked off. I get the feeling you don't care for me very much. Why did you agree to keep an eye on me?"

"On the level?" She nodded. "I'm on the bean."

"I thought you said you were going to be square with me."

"I am."

"Are you telling me that with your outrageous price, you're _broke?_" Her tone might have indicated that I had just said I owned Wonder Woman's lie-detector lasso.

"I'm telling you I gamble too much."

She didn't say anything else until we reached the hotel again. Frankie was walking the beat nearby, and I nodded at him. He nodded back. Maura didn't notice. I guess she was too fixated on the thought of sinking her teeth into a steak. We walked inside the place, and I was again reminded of my dislike for these patrons—people like Maura, people lousy with dough, and most of them with little to no brains to speak of. Taking in the sight of my elegant black dress, the host didn't give us any guff this time as he found us a table.

"Did you see that cop walking the beat outside?" I asked, scanning the menu.

"Yes."

"That was my brother, Frankie."

"Really?" she laughed. "He's one of the bulls? I certainly hope he's never had to chase down a crook—with his face, he doesn't look like he'd even be able to lick an ice cream cone!"

"He's strong for his size," I said out of lazy sibling loyalty. "He could lick a bunch of guys if he wanted to. I know he's taken on at least _one _crook. My other brother. Tommy. He's a bit of a trouble maker."

"What's he done?" Maura asked curiously.

"He's sort of a boozehound. Likes to dip his bill a lot. One night he got pretty lit up, got behind the wheel, and hit a priest. In a stolen meat wagon, by the way."

I could tell Maura was more horrified that Tommy had taken charge of an ambulance than the fact that he'd hit a man of the cloth. But she apparently got over it pretty quickly and asked, "Did _you_ ever want to be a cop?"

No. Working as an underground detective was perfect. "Why should I?"

"Well for one thing, you'd look nice in a uniform," she said, but before she could elaborate, our waiter arrived. We ordered quickly (including some fancy wine), and once he'd left, Maura stated, "I suppose your sex could keep you out of that profession, anyhow. Legitimate police work, I mean."

True. "Yeah, but there's not enough jack in that business, anyway. My brother lives even worse than I do, and he doesn't gamble. I tell ya, Dr. Isles: the only thing that counts is that stuff you can take right to the bank. That filthy buck that everybody sneers at, but slugs to get."

Maura primly folded her napkin in her lap, and for a moment, I felt as though I was seeing the manners of a finishing school girl pop up. "And you call _me_ hard, detective?"

I shrugged. "For your circumstances, sure. Look at your family. Look at the Fairfields. You've got everything in life you could possibly ever ask for." I paused for the brief moment it took our waiter to drop off the wine. "Money, a good name, security. Every morning when you get up, what do you see? A gorgeous, intelligent, successful woman. I look in a mirror and I see a broken-down piece of machinery. Nothing but the buck, the bed, the bangtails and the bottle for the rest of my life."

She was watching how much of the drink I was downing. Her gaze appeared softer than it had before. It no longer looked capable of cutting through stone. Tissue paper, maybe. "You've got a family, haven't you?" she asked softly. "Parents, siblings—a home?"

"Home?" I sneered. "Home is where you go when you run out of places. My crappy little apartment suits me fine."

Maura looked like she was going to say something, but shifted it when I poured myself a second glass of wine. "Why do you drink?" she asked. I didn't answer her. There were secrets I had locked up inside like a vault, and not even a dish like her could crack me so easy. But it seemed like Maura Isles might have had a woman's intuition working for her, too—she took a very good stab: "What're you trying to forget?"

"Maybe I'll tell you once I've forgotten," I said, and that got her quiet. "Enough about me, Dr. Isles."

"Please," she said. "You can just call me Maura."

"Then just call me Jane. You did, once. You can do it again." She bit her lip and I leaned forward. "Me, Jane. You, Maura."

That got her to laugh slightly, and I instantly realized I had never seen her like this. Every time she had smiled, there'd been a smirk in it; every time she had laughed, there'd been a tint of irony or darkness to it. This chuckle, however brief, was genuine and it was beautiful. It was the Myrna Loy to her smirk's Marlene Dietrich: the latter might be exciting, but it's the first one you want to bring home and show your mother. It's the one you feel secure in believing will age well.

With this sudden break in the barrier, I felt a little more confident saying, "I'm the detective, Maura. I'm the one who should be asking the questions. You were right in saying we don't know whether Fairfield was chilled off or if he just croaked before his time. And as you also pointed out earlier, you could be a pretty good suspect." Maura remained silent, and I pointedly added, "When you first came to me, I told you that I might have to ask you for a bit of your background."

"What do you want, Jane, my life history?" she asked, and it was clear her momentary bubble of happiness had popped. Her tone hadn't quite reverted to the steely, cold one she'd most frequently used before, but there was a sense of weariness to it, like we were playing a game and she was getting tired of it. Maura pulled out a cigarette, declining to offer me one, and tapped it against the box as she said, "Here it is in four words: big ideas, small results."

"How do you mean?"

She lit the cigarette. "You think my life is perfect," she scoffed quietly. I noticed her wine glass was empty. "And I'm sure I can understand why it looks that way, for all the reasons you outlined. But there are pages missing from the fairy tale, Jane. Sometimes you think you're on top of it and you're ready, but then you realize you aren't the director of your own story. You go where they tell you. You wear what they tell you. You say what they want you to say. And all the while, you're sitting there smiling pretty and telling yourself it's what you really want."

"What d'you want, Maura?"

"I want to help people, and not just as a nurse in a nice little hospital where the Fairfields are placating me."

"What kind of people do you want to help?"

"The kind that can't speak for themselves."

I narrowed my eyes. I didn't get where she came off being St. Mary all of a sudden. "What's your angle?" I asked.

She did not look pleased by my accusatory tone. "What's yours?" she shot back.

"Don't give me that. _I _need money; you don't. You don't have to lift a finger."

Our food arrived, but neither of us started eating. "At least I tried," she said. "I was over there, Jane. In the war. I saw things I can never forget. And I don't care what you've seen on the job here; you cannot begin to imagine the things I witnessed. But you know how it feels to be told you can't do something, just because you're a woman."

"Yes," I said, beginning to eat. "I do."

"I could be a nurse. That's all."

"You wanted to fight?"

"I just wanted to do _more_. But then the war ended, and I came back home, and I was nothing but Adam Fairfield's wife. Meanwhile Ian just gets to—"

"Who's Ian?"

Her half-smile indicated that she'd noticed my tone was more jealous than it was inquisitive. "Nobody," she said gently. "Just the head doctor in my corps, who also happened to be an old friend of mine."

"When was that?"

"Oh, in the good old days."

"How old?"

"Old enough to be good," she offered with a shrug.

"That's pretty, Maura, but it doesn't answer my question," I said patiently.

"I know," she said softly, prodding at her steak with her fork. She didn't seem so keen on cutting her teeth on it now. "We studied medicine together. He wants to travel the world, bringing medical aid to people who need it and can't get it for whatever reason. I wanted to go with him."

"But you couldn't."

She shook her head. "I suppose I _am_ bitter," she said thoughtfully, finally bringing a piece of steak to her mouth. I was briefly distracted by watching it disappear behind her perfect white teeth, even more so when she swallowed and licked her lips—lips I had already tasted and wanted to taste again. I felt like our conversation was evening the playing field in my favor. Maura continued: "I've had to find other ways to satisfy myself, and since Adam was never helpful in that regard, I've had to look elsewhere."

"Elsewhere."

"Yes." In case I hadn't gotten her point, she nudged my leg under the table.

"That isn't the way to play it," I said with a crooked smile, withdrawing my leg.

She raised one eyebrow, and I saw a bit more of her old self fading back in. "Why not?" she inquired a little too politely to be sincere.

"Because it isn't the way to win."

And now the hardness was definitely back. "_Is _there a way to win?"

"Well…there's a way to lose more slowly."

The thrill of the chase is always more fun than the catch. I didn't want to bed her quite yet. She was too interesting.

I spent the rest of dinner grilling her about the war. She seemed to enjoy talking about it. I imagine none of the Fairfields would have ever wanted to hear the grisly details, and that's all I wanted and all Maura wanted to get off her chest. More than once I expected her to crack, to cry, but she held it in. After a while, her tone got pretty detached, and she almost sounded like a bored college professor explaining an old war injury. Maybe it was just my detective gut speaking, but now and then she seemed to slip into rehearsed territory. It happened the most when she brought up this Ian Faulkner guy. I didn't like him, and I couldn't quite place why.

As if sensing this, Maura said, "I liked Ian. But we couldn't have ever really gone anywhere romantically speaking, if that's what you're thinking. He's a nice guy, but if there's anything war taught me, it's that the world isn't for nice guys. You gotta kick and punch and bite your way up 'cause nobody's going to give you a lift—that's for damn sure. You've got to do it yourself. Because nobody cares about us except ourselves."

"That's pretty big talk from someone who's given up," I observed. Her eyes narrowed again. "You lay down and let the Fairfields walk all over you."

"No," she said with a smirk. "I let them _think _they do. I met you at a secret club, detective. I talked Garrett into hiring you for my protection. I got you into my bedroom. They think they pull all the strings, but Pinocchio here's still got control of a few vital limbs. They can't take _all _of it away from me."

"Well then," I sighed, sitting back. "Sounds like at least you've still got your self-respect."

"_Don't talk to me about self-respect_," Maura snapped, and I sat up at attention. She had sounded almost like a drill sergeant bent on ridding a young draftee of all the dreams he had about what made America great. As if realizing she had perhaps come off a little too strongly, Maura leaned back in her chair, still sounding aggressively defensive if not angry when she said, "Self-respect is something you tell yourself you have when you've got nothing else left."

I drained my glass. "Then at least you've still got your looks."

And there, for a moment, was that girlish smile again.

We finished dinner and got another cab to go home in—me to my crummy apartment, and Maura to her mansion. Both of us were a little high off the alcohol, and Maura started getting back to her frisky ways again.

"Was that dinner worth it?" she asked, delicately placing her hand on my bare leg and sneaking it north.

I didn't care how many sob stories she'd shared, or how much she felt like she hadn't gotten a fair shake from the world. She still was too accustomed to people bowing and scraping to her. She was still too used to getting so much handed to her on a silver platter. I wasn't going to be one of those things or one of those people.

"You know, there's a speed limit in this city, Dr. Isles," I husked.

Her grin was catlike. "How fast was I going, officer?"

My voice was a growl. "I'd say around ninety."

"Suppose you get down off your motorcycle and give me a ticket."

Her fingers were getting dangerously close the apex between my legs, dipping past my dress and continuing on up. "Suppose I let you off with a warning this time," I suggested breathlessly.

She snorted a short laugh. "Suppose it doesn't take."

"Suppose I have to put you over my knees and whack your rear."

I could feel her shiver, as if she liked the sound of that supposition. "Suppose I bust out crying and put my head on your shoulder."

"Suppose you try putting it on my fiancé's shoulder."

That tore it. Maura slowly pulled her hand back out and stared quizzically at me. "You're engaged?" she asked in mild disbelief.

I cleared my throat and scooted a little more to the other side of the cab. I stole a glance up at our driver through the glass barrier separating us, but he didn't seem to have seen anything. "Not officially," I said. "I sort of promised a soldier something before he left."

"You said you'd marry him?" Maura pressed me.

"If he came back, yeah," I muttered. "And he didn't die, so I guess he'll be coming back at some point, so… I guess we'll tie the knot eventually." It sort of threw me off my game to see that Maura was looking at me like I was a felon. "Oh, don't tell me you're sore at me because I might sort of may be engaged to someone. That'd be calling the kettle black as night, Maura."

"Adam was never in love with me," Maura said a little acidly, moving decidedly over to her side of the cab and folding her arms indignantly. "And I was never in love with him, as evidenced by both our behavior. This soldier didn't have an obligation to you like the Fairfields did to my family. He proposed to you out of love, wouldn't you say?"

"Eh…I guess." We had reached my street. It was time to play a little game of footsie myself. I ran the tip of my shoe up the back of Maura's silk-covered leg, and again she shivered noticeably. "But the feeling's not entirely mutual," I whispered.

"So the fact that you are currently engaged doesn't bother you?" she asked, snippier than a pair of sewing scissors (but, in my opinion, with far less justification).

We had pulled up to my building. "What I want to know," I said, opening my door to get out, "is whether it bothers _you_."

* * *

**A/N**: And there's our introduction to a backstory on Maura. Just FYI, that last exchange is borrowed from _Gilda _and the brilliant speed limit dialogue was adapted from _Double Indemnity_. Other references include _The Damned Don't Cry, __The Street With No Name_, _The Naked Kiss, __The Prowler, Fallen Angel, Ace in the Hole, Beyond the Forest, Lady in the Lake, Clash By Night,_ and Out_ of the Past. _Hmm...now that I'm reading that list, it seems like quite a lot, doesn't it? I'd like to try and quote the actual show more, because I feel like if it was easy to do in the western AU, it should be easy to do here. But I don't watch a lot of westerns and I do (or did) watch a lot of noir, and their dialogue is just _too great _to be ignored.

Also, sorry- I was pretty tired and kind of out of it when I wrote this. I hope all my fellow Americans enjoyed celebrating Independence day!


	7. There Is Nothing Like a Dame

I decided I didn't care much for Garrett Fairfield.

I'm not particularly sure why, other than that smug puss of his. Guys like him, rolling in the dough, don't give a flying crap about anyone they can't pay off. When he came to visit me a second time, I felt incredibly stupid for not having guessed his real motivation in hiring me right away.

"You're in the office," he said without so much as a hello when I opened my door.

"I'm fine thanks, and how are you?" was my reply, gesturing for him to take a seat. Frost caught my eye in the hallway and raised his eyebrows. I just rolled my eyes at him and shut the door. "All right, Fairfield, what's got your panties in a twist now?"

"Why aren't you with Maura?"

"We're both working at the moment."

"You've been hired to watch her."

"I've been hired to keep an eye on her. And to investigate your brother's death, if you recall." I glanced up and in that moment—call it a gut feeling—I suddenly realized why it was so important to Garrett that Maura remain more heavily chaperoned than a kid on parole from reform school. "You wanna give me one good reason why we shouldn't pinch _you_, Mr. Fairfield?"

Success. He looked nervous. "Wh—excuse me?"

"True, it hasn't been confirmed yet that your brother was knocked off …it could have just been an accidental death. But your tone is gonna lead you right over the deep end if you don't watch out, Mr. Fairfield. Got a thing for your dead brother's girl?"

"What?" he sneered. "Maura's an old friend of the family. That's why I'm interested in keeping her safe. And besides—if I did it, why would I come to you for help?"

"Oldest trick in the book to try and throw me off," I answered without hesitation. I didn't blink. I had him scared. "Don't think I won't look into this, Fairfield. Now get the hell out of my office so I can get back to work. Don't go questioning the way I do my job ever again." He was still sitting down, but I could see his tail tucked between his legs. "And the next time you come here for information," I added, "don't beg for it like a dog. Ask for it straight-up, like a man."

There was a stiffness to the way he walked out of there, no longer cool as a cucumber. Call it perverse, but sending a guy like him off like that always gives me a thrill.

Around noon, I decided to drop by the hospital where Maura worked to pay her a visit. By chance I happened to run into her walking out of an employee bathroom. She looked surprised but not unhappy to see me, but had to decline my offer to take her to lunch. Explaining that she'd brought a sandwich to work, she led me back to her tiny office. Apparently I had done her quite a service by showing up when I did: she said whether I was engaged or not, she much preferred my company to exchanging scuttlebutt with the other nurses on her lunch break.

As she got out her keys to open her office door, I couldn't help noticing a poster hung up in the hallway nearby. It was an illustration of three women, one of whom was winking at the viewer and all of whom looked as though they could have been Mary Magdalene before she came to Jesus. Above them was an illustration of a gun fronted by _"Loaded?" _in big red letters. The bottom of the poster read, "_Don't take chances with Pickups! Loose Women may also be loaded with disease. VD is not V(ictory)_."

Maura could see I was staring at the poster. "What's VD supposed to mean?" I asked.

"Venereal Disease." She clicked her tongue and opened her door, gesturing for me to go inside. "Certainly doesn't lead to victory, does it?"

"Yeah, I hear those Nazi broads were real whores," I said, shutting the door behind me.

Although we were now alone in an enclosed space, Maura lowered her voice as she went to sit behind her desk. "Oh, not the Nazis, Jane. Those are supposed to be _American_ women. According to everyone, American women are nothing but vicious trollops. Tramps."

"Yeah?"

She seemed to consider something, then opened the bottom drawer of her desk. "Would you like to see a souvenir from the war?"

"And how."

Maura passed a very cheaply-made and quite-worn leaflet over to me, and I opened it instantly. The drawings on these pages made the women on the poster look like Mary Magdalene not only after she'd met Jesus but after she'd been resurrected in his holy light and lived in heaven for a century and a half. These pictures—they were downright pornographic. Poorly translated captions accompanied the drawings, and I can only imagine what my face must have looked like as I stared at them. As I flipped through the pages, I felt my tongue run across my lips more than once and I crossed my legs, wanting to stop looking but unable to do so. Maura Isles had essentially just handed me pornography to look at in front of her. And oh, there's an actual photograph.

"Do you know what those are?" she asked, her voice detached and smooth as tinted glass.

"Breasts?"

"Free, government-mandated breasts," Maura replied. "Germany and Japan wanted our boys to see just what they were missing by joining the army. Apparently when you sign up to do what's patriotic, you waive your hold on any girl you left behind in the states."

"And boy, does she keep herself busy," I murmured, nearing the end of the leaflet. "Sleeping around with your old insurance agent, or…" I got to the last page, and I knew Maura was watching me closer than ever. I wondered if she could hear how hard my heart was pounding. There was a drawing of two women doing something I had never even tried but definitely wanted to.

Maura reached out a hand for the pamphlet, and I slowly gave it back. "Or trying oysters," Maura said.

I drummed my fingers along the top of her desk. "Yeah. So, did it work?"

She froze, her hand stilling above the open drawer. "What?"

"Did it work. Did it make the boys in your unit want to go running home?"

With a smirk, she shut the pamphlet safely away in the drawer and straightened again. "I should think not. It became quite a useful aid for other things, though."

"Just for the boys, huh?"

"Naturally," Maura said with a coy smile. "I kept this one for ethnographic research only."

"Good, because if you kept it for any other reasons, I'd say you might need a slap in the wrist, or something more—like whatever the hell was going on in that third page, there."

Her grin widened, and I wasn't sure if it was now sincere or not. "Keeping an eye out for my virtue, Jane? Has Garrett asked you to be my guardian angel, now?"

"If he did, he failed to notice I lost my wings a long time ago." I leaned forward, clasping my hands together. Especially after looking through that pamphlet, Maura's nurse rags left entirely too much to my imagination, and I decided I really wasn't a fan of it. "No kidding, Maura. What're you doing tonight?"

"Garrett's really got you invested, hasn't he?"

"Did he tell you he came to see me this morning?"

"Yes. He phoned me earlier." She chuckled. "You've got him wound like a spring, Jane. I think the next time he sees you, he's going to want you to sign a formal agreement of some kind."

I snorted and leaned back in my chair again. "Anything I wanna say to that mug, I wouldn't put on paper." Maura looked amused, but didn't say anything. "So… how about that guy, Dr. Isles? You and Garrett Fairfield. Anything there that I should know about?"

Maura somehow looked even more amused than before. There was a growing sense of dread in the pit of my stomach, the one that told me I was being looked at down the barrel of a gun. "Garrett's the salt of the earth," Maura said in a lofty voice.

"He's not the right seasoning for you," I responded.

"I agree," she said, giving me a nice little nod. "Besides, friendship lasts longer than romance."

"Sure, but it's a lot less entertaining." She raised an eyebrow, and for a moment, I felt like I was on top again. "From what I read about Garrett Fairfield in the tabloids, he's big on entertainment."

"Oh, he wouldn't call it that," Maura said, pretending to look scandalized. "Every American, including the slimy ones, have the right to pursue happiness—and that's all he's doing."

"From what I hear, he pursues it in all directions."

"Yes. He and I have that in common."

Some flatfoot _I_ was turning out to be. I couldn't tell for sure if Maura was acknowledging a more carnal aspect to her relationship with Garrett, or if she was merely saying they both enjoyed a variety of worldly recreations. This is why I try not to get personally invested in my cases. I didn't Maura to be with that guy in any way, shape, or form. "Level with me, Maura. If you didn't have any interest in Fairfield, why'd you agree to go on with the wedding? You used to money?"

"Aren't you the romantic," Maura sneered. "I'd think you'd know, detective. A woman doesn't care how much money a person makes—just how they make love. I was willing to give Adam the benefit of the doubt. We just never got to reach that point. Now let me ask _you _a question."

"If you must."

"What is there between you and that soldier? The one you're unofficially engaged to? I don't see a ring on your finger."

"Astute observation, doctor. He never gave me one. Like I told you, he wanted to wait to see if he survived the war."

"The war's been over for several months now, detective. Are you saying he hasn't contacted you since?"

"That's correct."

"And there's been nothing from the war office? He was never a POW, or MIA?"

"Nope."

"But you haven't heard from him. How does that make you feel?"

I shrugged.

Oh, boy. She was going to start playing head doctor with me. "Perhaps you're in denial of how sad you are," she mused. "Distraction can often help in eroding depression."

"Don't make that kind of offer unless you're willing to follow up," I said seriously. "I got the impression last night that you weren't so big on the idea of spending time with an engaged woman."

"Yes, well, I thought about it. First of all, you aren't actually engaged. Second of all, you don't appear very chuffed about this soldier. And third of all, just because there's a goalie, that doesn't mean I can't score."

"Unless I put up a good defense."

"You like soccer, Jane?"

"Ice hockey."

Her lips formed a perfect "o," and the recollection of the fact that my tongue had been inside that mouth hit me like a freight train. I wanted to taste her again. Badly. For a few moments, we sat there silently sizing each other up. I wondered if Maura had, like me, tried her hand with women before the war—or maybe the thought never even crossed her mind until she saw those pamphlets. Maybe another nurse had put a move on her. The thought made me irrationally jealous.

"Do you remember where we first met, Jane?"

"Of course."

Maura tossed a small bag at me and I caught it. "Come again tonight. Unless you'd prefer cutting a rug with someone else?"

"Just call me scissors girl."

As it turned out, there was no dancing at the club that night.

That day I started the real gumshoe work. I waited for Maura to leave the hospital, and I followed her when she did.

I'd gone back to the office to change first, so she wouldn't recognize me quite as easily: I was wearing a sun-yellow dress, which my mother thought looked lovely on me but which I always thought made me look like an egg done sunny-side up. Whatever the case, it couldn't be more different from my usual work attire. I also put some effort into changing my hair, styling it up and then hiding most of it under a wide-brimmed hat. (I don't know what it is about women and hats. The one currently on my head looks like a giant pancake. Most hats seem to mock reason and defy logic—hats that look like dunce caps, hats with feathers poking out both ends, hats tilted on the side of the head like volcanoes about to erupt, hats bigger than ice boxes and hats smaller than pill boxes. It amazes me that a society which permits women to wear things like this on their heads has survived for so long.)

Suffice it to say it was a pretty decent disguise for a woman who had to look like she'd just fit in on the streets. Maura had no idea I was on her trail. From work she went to a flower shop where she purchased nothing, then a grocery store where she emerged with only a box of candy. Then there was a manicure, a department store, and some window-shopping at a pet store.

I only followed her into the flower shop and then the department store, which was so big I might have lost track of her otherwise. The rest of the time I stayed safely outside, sometimes across the street, chatting up some random Joe or pretending to skim a magazine. Maura hadn't done anything sufficiently suspicious enough to warrant closer attention, yet. All I could think of when I saw her interacting with other people or innocently smiling at puppies was that nobody passing her by had any inkling that a lady like her would have images of naked women stashed away in her drawer.

Things didn't get strange until she went to get a coffee. A man met her there, a man I'd never seen before. He wasn't a Fairfield, and I knew Maura didn't have any male relatives aside from her father—and he certainly wasn't old enough to be her father. I watched them closely for any signs of intimacy, but all I saw was one instance where Maura put her hand on top of his at the bar. There again rose that irrational, raging jealousy, like a snake rearing its ugly head in my chest.

The man left first, and I suppose I could have followed him, but I decided not to. I wanted to stick with Maura, and grill her about him later. Maura remained at the coffee shop a little while longer before returning home, where I let her stay.

I went back to my own apartment and finally opened the small bag she'd given me. Inside was a plain black mask, similar in style to the sash I'd worn across my face the first time Maura and I had ever met. Only this was legitimate. It was simple but elegant; it was bigger than the sash and covered my nose. I put it on and studied my reflection.

It was shaped sort of like a sideways number _8_, and I couldn't help wondering if Maura had stuck me behind the eight ball again. Did she have me in a jam? Was last night, when she opened up to me, a fluke? She had seemed a bit more distant today, a bit more like her old, cold self. Wary of pulling anyone in unless she could get something physical out of it.

I had to find out. I had to push her buttons harder than they'd been pushed before, and if that meant I got under her skin in a bad way, so be it. Strange as it seems, people can be more easily manipulated into telling the truth when they're flustered. I told myself I was doing all this for the case. It certainly had nothing to do with the image of Maura Isles being yanked down to my level, needing help from me and me alone to be built up into someone bigger and better than she had been before.

I pulled off the yellow sundress and got back into the comfortable familiarity of a white button-up shirt. But I decided to stay at least a little bit within the realm of femininity, and put on a black skirt with a long slit in the back. It showed off my legs, which I know have always been my best feature. I pulled my hair back and up, then finished the look with a bolo tie. Nobody in Boston wears bolo ties except oil tycoons visiting from the southwest. I'm guessing the one I borrowed it from never missed it.

There had been a small note in the bag with my mask: _"Tell them Gene sent you_." Gene—Gene Tierney. The star of _Laura_. Rhymes with Maura. Personally I would have expected something a little more original from Dr. Isles, but ah well. I took a taxicab to the club, and the woman at the door looked rather impressed that "Gene" had summoned me.

The club was crawling with women, again all of them wearing masks. I couldn't so much as take a step without having some drunken creature launch herself at me or try to cop a feel. But all I was interested in was finding Maura. Apparently a fast dance number had just ended; various couples were making their way to the dark corners of the room to engage in activities of a different sort.

The bandleader clapped for attention, and most people granted it. "All right y'all, it's time to slow things down so we can heat things up! Here's the deal. Get into two lines." As a number of the women agreeably set about this task, the bandleader got down onto the floor from her elevated stand, holding two oranges. "You've got to pass the orange down the line without using your hands, and this is how you'll do it." She walked up to the first person on each line and stuck the orange under his or her chin. "The first team to make it through all the players wins! Or, if one team drops the orange on the floor, that one will automatically be deemed the losing team!"

I had been one of the patrons sticking to the side, but then I found myself being dragged into one of the lines by a very aggressive woman with dirty-blonde hair. With her hand still clenched around my arm like a vice, she turned around and I knew it was Maura. If there was a police lineup of Maura's body parts, those hazel eyes would be the dead giveaway to her identity. They were leering up at me through a gilded golden mask that was blindingly ornate and probably cost more than a night at the Ritz.

"Hello, scissors girl," she said in a voice that perfectly matched the gold of her mask. "Did you miss me?"

"Like nobody's business."

She was wearing translucent black gloves that reached her elbows, and I shivered when she ran her finger down the length of my bolo tie. "I like this," she murmured, her finger stopping just between my breasts for a heart stopping moment. Then she grabbed the tie in her fist and yanked me down a little closer to her own height. "Leather?" she purred.

"Could be."

Maura released me and I was glad her mask covered only the top half of her face: now I could luxuriate in her smile. "I like leather."

She then turned around, redirecting her attention to the game that was going on. Transferring the orange without the use of hands meant that couples had to awkwardly embrace and do an odd sort of dance. Several jawbones bumped against each other as one partner pressed the orange against the throat of the other until she could grip it tightly enough with her chin to turn and offer it to the girl behind her. What made it more difficult than Korsak trying to pick out an appropriate present for a woman was the fact that even the slightest miscalculation (which could come about through un-coordination, inhibition, and/or haste) would almost always result in losing control of the orange. Though everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves immensely, it never crossed my mind for a second that anyone was actually playing to win the game.

This included Maura. Oh, she was playing all right. Playing on my lust like an old saloon piano in desperate need of tuning. Currently she was trying to secure the orange from a big-boned redhead in front of her, and this ginger looked ready to snap from the way Maura was touching her. Those gorgeous hands of hers were going everywhere, and I felt myself growing hotter than an egg on the sidewalk in July—and, with every passing moment, wetter than the twin popsicle that had melted and spilled onto that egg.

Wait. This metaphor is confused.

The point is, Maura was driving me wild like a lion tamer and I knew I had to have my chance in the ring with her. Fortunately, I got it soon.

Maura succeeded in getting the orange and quickly turned to me. Instantly we were engaged in one of the most awkward but scintillating maneuvers that I could have possibly imagined. I felt myself getting even hotter as Maura's lips repeatedly came close to touching mine while we struggled and shrugged and kind of embraced. She tightened her grip on my waist, her lips brushing against my neck, and I could have sworn my brain short-wired. That would explain why I had gone so limp all of a sudden as Maura continued to rub herself against me, pushing her thigh into the skirt that covered both of mine.

"Come on," she whispered, and I barely heard her voice over the music. "It's better when you help."

That was the shot I needed. "You shouldn't be consorting with all these other women, _Gene_."

"Why not, J?"

"You know what they say about pickups. And that's the only thing the women in here have in mind, regarding themselves, each other, and you." With a growl I grabbed her ass and I felt her gasp into my neck. "And me." The move had taken her off guard, and her chin lifted up enough for me to tuck the orange under my own and move to the overeager dame behind me.

My legs felt as sturdy as one of Ma's Tres Leches cakes. By the time I had passed off the fruit and turned around, Maura was gone.

* * *

**A/N**: Something I find interesting about most noirs is how much of the movie the leads spend hating each other. It's either hate or blatant lust while they try to kill one of their spouses. Abusive as it often is, I think there's there something cinematically scintillating about that back-and-forth dance, not knowing if he/she is really on your side, being sincere, or just trying to get something from you... hence its inclusion here.

And oh...those propaganda pamphlets were totally real.

Anyway, thanks for reading. This chapter's title is a song from..._South Pacific_, I think? And the whole orange-passing-game comes from a scene in _Charade _that somehow manages to be incredibly silly and then suddenly sexy. Other references include _The Big Combo, Clash By Night, Mildred Pierce, Beyond the Forest, Ninotchka, Scarlet Street, Sweet Smell of Success, _and _Strangers on a Train_.


	8. The Fantasy Fatale

**A/N**: References in this chapter are to _Detour, Key Largo, Impact, The Lady Eve_, and _Gun Crazy. _Hope I didn't get too out of hand in this chapter.

* * *

I ran out of the club and down the alley that led to the street, but Maura was already gone. She must have nabbed a taxi, and I quickly followed suit, giving the driver her address. Clearly I'd gone too far and put my foot in it, and she was upset. Dames. They're so emotional.

Somehow Maura made it back to her apartment much faster than I did, even though she couldn't have left the club more than a minute ahead of me. Guess I'd had a real jingle-brained cab driver, who also managed to hit every red light on the way over. He was probably trying to ring me up for more than I was worth—asked for a fin, and I threw proper change in his face before running up the steps to Maura's place.

Her French maid said Maura wasn't home, but I shoved past her and headed upstairs. Maura wasn't in her bedroom, but my old clothes were. The night Maura and I had gone for steaks, I'd come back to her place to change into something more appropriate, and had wound up forgetting my slacks and shirt here. Maybe it had been on purpose. Maybe subconsciously I had wanted an excuse to come back. Well here I was, sliding my skirt off and the slacks back on, leaving the white button-up and undershirt I'd had on at the club.

Just in time, too. I was buttoning my slacks when the door flew open, banging against the wall loud as a wrecking ball and admitting Maura inside, looking mad as a bull. She slammed the door shut but before she could get a word in, I said, "Took your time getting here, didn't you?"

"I was minding my own business in my study," she said. Her voice sounded as shaky as my handwriting looks, and her eyes were red. Obviously she'd been crying. "Simone told me you forced your way in here. Breaking and entering, detective?"

"Doing my job, doctor," I said back, stepping towards her. "Your boyfriend is paying me a pretty hefty sum to keep my eye on you."

"I told you Garrett Fairfield _is not my boyfriend,_" Maura hissed. "And I don't give a damn what he told you—get out of my house, out of my room!"

I nodded at a musty old mattress lying next to her obscenely large bed. "Who's that for?"

"Garrett had his man and my butler bring it up," Maura spat.

"For me?"

"That was his intention, yes. But I—"

I had to laugh at that. "Well, well, Maura! That's one pretty considerate cat."

"They brought it up while I was out. I have no interest in keeping it or you here."

"Why Maura, you hurt me."

"_I _hurt _you?"_

"Why'd you run off before? What the hell's gotten into you?"

I was expecting a verbal answer, and instead I got a sharp slap to the kisser. She didn't even look sorry. My first instinct was to slap her back, a move which I regretted and she clearly had not been ready for. I was sorry and I wasn't sorry. But I couldn't help myself. Next thing I knew, I had grabbed her shoulders and forced her against the wall, crushing my lips against hers. She made some half-assed noise of protest which I ignored, holding her firm.

"C'mon, Maura, it's even better when you help," I whispered, throwing back at her the words she'd tossed at me when she was grinding against me in the club.

Apparently I'd gone too far. With surprising strength, Maura gave me a strong shove and even stronger slap (although this time she was kind enough to give it to the other cheek). She sounded almost hysterical when she spoke, her words slurring together like a drunk's , presumably in an effort to talk before I could retaliate: "Get your mitts off me, Jane Rizzoli! You think I'm cheap!"

"On the contrary, baby. I think you come for quite a price."

Her voice was explosive. A bomb. "That's a lie! You think I'm desperate, don't you? You think I'll try anything once, go anyplace once—"

"Look where you spend your evenings," I said darkly.

"You made a crack about me in that club, and I did not appreciate it," she said hotly. I could practically see the smoke coming out of her ears. "Do you know what people called me in the corps, detective? Hm? Do you know my nickname?"

"Wasn't Dr. Death, was it?"

She let out a mirthless laugh, and her voice somehow still managed to sound like steel when she sing-songed her way through "Maura the whore-a. Not very clever, is it? I think some hick kid first came up with it, and people ran with it from there. Maura the whore." She shrugged and walked around me, sitting on the edge of her bed. "I tried to ignore it. I tried turning the other cheek. But that's not how it works. In this world, you turn the other cheek and you get hit with a lug wrench."

"What d'you mean by that?" I asked seriously. "Any soldier ever try forcing himself on you?"

Finally looking up at me, she shook her head. "The name just stuck, that's all. I had plenty of soldiers try, but they never forced anything." She ran her tongue briefly over her lips, and I felt a stab of guilt for my behavior a few moments ago. "I—I am not a whore, Jane."

"You, uh… you pure?"

"I used to be Snow White, but I drifted," she replied, crossing her legs. "I've screwed around and been screwed over."

"By who, that guy I saw you chinning with in the coffee shop earlier?"

If she was surprised I knew about this, she hid it well. "That was just a friend."

"Sleep with your friends, Dr. Isles?"

"Is this interrogation necessary?"

"Yes. Maybe someone wanted Adam Fairfield out of the picture so he could have you. Or… she?"

"There is no 'she,'" Maura said quietly. "That business didn't start until recently."

"How recently?"

"The end of the war."

"That's recent."

"Yes, it is. Detective…" She sighed heavily. "I don't consider myself a whore. Once my engagement with Adam became official, I ceased sexual activity with other men. But I've always had an insatiable curiosity …it leads me to roads I've never walked down, sights I've never considered. I always do my best to be careful. I started going to this club as an experiment. I wanted to see if there was anything to it."

"To what?"

"Another nurse tried putting me over, once. I was…disgusted. Told her she was tooting the wrong ringer." She paused, waiting for me call out her hypocrisy, but I didn't. I knew the little engine would get there. And she did. "But I thought about it for weeks afterwards. Couldn't get it out of my mind. And then I found that pamphlet …the one I showed you." As if I'd needed her to elaborate. "And I saw all these possibilities. Suddenly I had fantasies. I'm not typically one for fantasies, Jane. I'm straightforward."

"Coulda fooled me."

"I just do whatever occurs to me—taking precautions, of course, lest my precious family name get dragged through the mud. This was the first thing that gave me pause."

"Did you tell that to the nurse who tried something with you?"

"Couldn't. She got in the way of some Japanese lead. The next time I saw her, she was in a wooden kimono, dead as a doornail." Maura stood up off the bed and started pacing, or prowling more like—like a cat trapped in a small cage. "So I got home and I tried to be careful. I found out about the club, never mind how. I went, but only ever in disguise and never offering my real name. The women loved me." Somehow she managed to say this like it was an objective fact, not as though she were stuck up. It was cute, in its own way.

"And you—did you love them back?" I asked.

"Never more than a kiss, and rarely that," she replied. "If they started something and I wasn't in for it, I never let them get far."

"Have you been trying to make a sucker out of me?" I questioned, my voice stiff and hard as a board. "Because you sure haven't been doing so hot at keeping your hands off me."

Was that defeat in her eyes? "Do you mind if I pour myself a drink?"

"Er…no…"

"Thank you. I think I'll need it if this conversation is to continue. May I get you something?"

I followed her over to cabinet she was in the process of unlocking. "Sure, what kind of hooch you got? Any beer?"

"I'm afraid not." Stupid question. Roosevelt had probably been closer to playing hopscotch with Hirohito than Maura Isles had ever been to beer.

"What're you drinking?"

"Pinot noir."

"I'll try that, thanks."

She poured two glasses and handed me one. I waited to try mine as she took a sip and smacked those gorgeous lips of hers. She pulled the bottom one between her teeth for a second before finally looking back at me. "You know that whole business of falling in love?"

"What about it?"

"The bunk. Fake. A big cosmic joke. I figured even sex isn't all it's cracked up to be like it is in books or the movies. It's a mere biological—or some might say chemical—urge that every human feels. Ideally, you satiate that urge with someone you're fond of. Otherwise people might label you a whore, right? Someone who skates around? Well… I've been fond of men, Jane. But never in love with one. Never really hungered for one." She gulped down some of the wine and I finally did too, and when Maura spoke again, her words were rushed: "Then I met you. My head said one thing and my desire said another, but for once, my head didn't win. In fact it lost in a big way."

"What're you getting at, Maura?"

"I've been trying to get at you," she replied, her voice suspiciously smooth. "With mixed results. You know in all my many years of living, Jane, I've learned one very important thing about women."

"And what's that?"

"The best women aren't as good as you think they are," she said, and I had to wonder if she was referring to herself. "And the bad ones aren't as bad… not nearly as bad." Me? "I started going to that club to test my hypothesis, Jane. The one about sex just being a chemical procedure. If that were true, it would mean gender had very little to do with it."

Maura had finished her glass of wine, and as she poured another and took a sip, I asked, "What did you find?"

"I don't know," she said a little breathlessly. "All I am acutely aware of is that every goddam thing about you arouses my every goddam faculty, Jane." My jaw felt as if it had just dropped to the floor, and Maura just kept going. "Your face, your body, your voice, your aggression, I want all of it. It's not about getting off or getting intimate with a friend—because I don't know what the hell you and I are, I only know that I start to sweat just thinking about you."

How did I know she wasn't saying all this just because she was lit up? She was rambling, she was emotional. I couldn't hand myself over like a patsy. "What makes you think I'm not just treating you like any other job?"

She gave me the up-and-down as I killed my wine, and she set down her glass. "Because we go together, Jane. I'm not sure how or why—maybe like how guns and ammunition go together. But more than that, I've seen your physiognomy's responses to me. To my voice, my body, and my commands."

"Commands? I'm not on your payroll anymore, Maura. I'm on Fairfield's."

"Take your shirt off."

Well clearly she had a point, because I quickly found myself throwing off my bolo tie and unbuttoning my shirt. Her voice was dripping with an unspoken threat if I did not obey, and I was just going to have to wait my chance to level the playing field again. Once she seemed satisfied that I was taking orders, Maura walked around me towards the mattress that had been haphazardly dumped on the floor.

"I doubt Garrett would ever send something over that was less than suitable," she said, bending onto all fours on the mattress. "But it never hurts to check for bedbugs, just in case."

I flung my shirt onto her chair and walked over, having no patience to wait anymore. I was still in a sleeveless white undershirt and gray slacks when I got down on my knees behind Maura and bent over, molding my body to hers. I felt her hitch beneath me as I planted my palms right next to hers on the mattress, grasping for her hands. Whether it was a conscious choice or not, she lifted her palms just enough for me to slide mine under, threading her fingers together as I pushed the hot, wet area between my legs right up against her ass.

"On the level, Maura," I growled, pressing harder. She made a noise halfway through a groan and gasp, thrusting herself back into me. It felt good. It felt so damn good. "You've never been with a woman like this before?"

"No," she choked out, like she was a drowning victim fighting for air just to speak. "No."

I brought one hand up to her chest and squeezed, and her head dropped. She was panting. "You want more?"

She didn't want to break, but she had to. "Yes."

"Yes what, Maura?" I asked. "Where are your manners?"

"_Please_," she breathed. "Oh, God—"

I reared back, putting more weight on my feet and sitting up, pulling Maura back with me. My breasts were pressed tight against that joke of a flimsy dress of hers, and I knew she could feel how hard the tips were, just as I was teasing her own with my hands. The sounds coming out of her were downright animalistic as she rubbed herself frantically into my touch, my backwards embrace, seeking impossibly closer contact—we were already closer together than a piece of gum on the bottom of a shoe. I grabbed a fistful of her hair and shoved it aside, leaving a long open-mouthed kiss on her neck. Maura's next breath was strangled and she arched into my touch, grinding herself into my belt buckle, her hands fidgeting restlessly.

"Take this off," she panted, blindly fingering my undershirt, trying to pull the hem out from my trousers.

I slapped her hand away and she whimpered. "No, Maura. You're in _my_ fantasy now. You don't get to tell me what not to wear."

She whimpered again and twisted around in my arms, grabbing my face and yanking me into a kiss. I let her do it, I had to. I was flying by the seat of my pants but had no idea whether she was aware of that or not. Her kissing was assertive, her tongue dominating my mouth, her hands everywhere. She was trying again to pull out my tucked-in undershirt, and I finally regained some of my senses and tried to fight her off. I was going to be the one who dictated this.

The phone started ringing.

It was impossible to tell whether Maura was genuinely unaware of it, or if she was just ignoring it, but I saw my chance. If we were interrupted, I'd have a chance to regroup and regain my control. I pulled back.

"Answer it," I said roughly. That was a face I wasn't prepared for. I'd expected to see lust in those eyes of hers, and while I certainly did see that, there was more to it. Confusion? Anger? I had to catch my breath, which she surely noticed when I said in a louder voice, "Honey, if you don't get that blower, I will."

Now more than ever she seemed like a bull preparing to charge: her lips had clamped shut over what I presumed were clenched teeth, and this meant all her breathing had to be done through her nose. Heavy breathing, breathing I could almost see as much as hear. She stood up and stalked over to the horn on her nightstand. I barely listened when she picked it up; I was trying to focus. I needed a plan, at least for myself, to be in charge again. No way this broad was going to get the drop on me. I was going to dictate this.

Unfortunately, when Maura hung up and looked down at me, it was clear that something had changed. "Garrett's been kidnapped," she said blankly.

Well, that's life for you. Whichever way you turn, Fate sticks out a foot to trip you.

* * *

**A/N**: I feel like sometimes the Rizzles moments on the show bring out the good and the bad in me. The good leads to fluff and happiness, thinking of what might have been. The bad is the sexual frustration I feel on their behalf, and how upset I get that these two can't be together in canon. I swear I'm not generally as angry a person as this stuff might make me sound...


	9. Tables Are Turned

**A/N**: I think I lost my head with this story. It's so difficult to write! It's tough. I'm not losing interest, just steam... if that makes sense. I love the idea of this AU more than I love writing it, because it's hard to strike the tone I want to. Noir keeps you on your toes while you watch it. This one has me a bit antsy I guess, haha.  
Anyway, in addition to a long bout of writer's block (sorry), this chapter was brought to you by references to _The Dark Corner, Marked Woman, Out of the Past, Crack-Up_, and an anti-racist article once "written" by Humphrey Bogart for a fan magazine.

* * *

I'd had her right where I wanted her. I had already thought it out, planned unzipping her dress with my teeth before screwing the hell out of her on that mattress. Easier said than done, I guess. Pretty boy Garrett had to go and get himself snatched. Now I really didn't know where or how to proceed. Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it, Maura _did _know.

She wanted to go out and get tight.

Not stay in and get tight around my fingers, but go out and let some booze squeeze her brain so tight it lost all cognitive thinking skills.

Serves me right for telling her to get the damn telephone.

I had her chauffer drive us to a little dive I liked to go to for nightcaps. She didn't want to go some place where she'd be easily recognized, so I figured a bar where men went to get so drunk they wouldn't recognize their wives would be a good place. For the whole car ride over, Maura was about as talkative as Harpo Marx. An unnerving silence had fallen between us, and it made me nervous. Cruel as it sounds, I hadn't expected a reaction quite like this.

We got out at the bar, and the driver said he'd wait. What a dull life that guy must have.

I didn't even notice it until we sat down, but I walked into the bar with my hand at the small of Maura's back, leading her in. It didn't feel romantic or sexy as much as it did necessary, like she was a bowling pin in danger of falling at any moment. God help us when she actually gets drunk and can't see straight.

When I ordered us two overflowing beers and she still failed to react, I knew something was up. I had picked out a nice quiet booth for us to sit in, and the moment we did, Maura chugged down an impressive amount of beer.

"Sorry," she said softly, setting it down.

"S'okay." I had no idea what she was apologizing for. I shifted in my seat. She was staring at the table. "Wanna tell me what's goin' on in that big brain of yours?"

"I just…I'm just surprised, is all," she murmured. "When Adam went missing, I was—well, it was an unpleasant reality, but believable."

"How do you mean?" I asked quickly.

"He wouldn't be able to fight someone off. He's rich, unintimidating, unassuming. Trying to get Garrett would be so much harder—he doesn't go down without a fight, and he's physically capable of taking on anyone."

"Maura." The way I said her name finally got her to look up at me. Years of experience taught me there was regret and still a bit of humiliation in those eyes. "You've got to be straight with me, 'cause I'm gonna be straight with you: you're in a jam."

She gave a dry chuckle, getting out a cigarette. "I know it."

"You told me yourself why it'd be easy for anyone to suspect you about Adam: you didn't want to marry him, and you felt like someone was forcing your hand. Now I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say with Adam out of the picture, the Fairfields would be looking to set you up with their next eligible bachelor, who's now _also _out of the picture. And while for now he's just been kidnapped, well… he could turn up like Adam."

Maura sighed, or tried to. "I'd be easier to frame than Whistler's mother."

"That's why you've got to level with me."

"About what?"

"About everything. Now I know you've obviously been with me and at that club the last couple hours, but that doesn't mean you couldn't have an accomplice. Did you hire someone to take Garrett out?"

Her eyes darted to the side, wary of someone listening in. No chance. Everyone in here was too busy drowning themselves in their own problems to pay any attention to us, even a dish like Maura Isles. "Of course I didn't," she said a bit scathingly, like I'd poured hot coffee on her. "Jane, what possible motive could I have for wanting to get rid of Garrett?"

"Who was that guy I saw you having coffee with yesterday?"

"What's he got to do with anything?"

"Answer the question, Maura."

Her jaw was set, cigarette poised between her fingers like a knife she was ready to toss at me. "His name's Dennis Rockmond," she said. I couldn't help furrowing my brow and she noticed, correctly reading it as meaning I knew that name was familiar. "You know. The commercial artist."

"Oh, that hack? How d'you know him?"

"I saved his life in Bataan," she answered curtly. "As you can imagine, he's quite grateful."

"How grateful?"

"I told you we were just friends."

"Yeah, and then you changed the subject when I asked if you ever slept with your friends."

"I have not slept with him," she said steadily, almost robotically.

The funny thing is I found myself believing her, maybe because I just wanted to believe her so badly. That Rockmond guy had been pretty good-looking, in that sleazy kind of way. He had looks like a matinee idol, but I wasn't ready to swoon yet.

I remembered how she had touched his hand. "Did he ever want more than friendship?"

Maura pursed her lips. "Yes, he made that clear. Quite clear." She sighed again and anticipated my next question: "_How_ clear? By showing up in my apartment one night naked as the day he'd been born."

"What the hell?" I couldn't help laughing, and Maura at least granted me a weary smile. "Was this when you were engaged to Adam?"

"Yes, it was."

"You think he could be behind this?"

She smirked. "Dennis is passionate, but he's a bit of a…chump."

She'd said it to throw me off his trail, to see him as a non-threat. "There's only one way to deal with chumps: my way, with no holds barred."

Maura's chin rested in her hand, the cigarette smoke curling up alongside her face. She looked at me like I was a mildly amusing serial, sticking with me not out of loyalty but because there was simply nothing better to do. "Is that how you handle everything in your life, Detective Rizzoli? No holds barred?"

Before answering, I took a long swig of my beer. She didn't take her eyes off me; she had the precision and patience of the most experienced hunter. "That's right. I don't handle anything with kid gloves."

"Including women." Yeah, things had gotten a little out of hand at her place. "Don't worry," she said. "I liked it. It felt… primal."

The last word came tumbling out of her lips like a growl, like it had come not from her chest but from between her legs. I let out a breath I hadn't realized I'd been holding. "Maura, I'm not sure I can do this anymore."

"Do what?"

"Watch you like the Fairfields asked me to."

At first she looked anxious, worried, but her expression soon settled into a soft sneer. "Why, Jane? Falling in love with me?"

"Don't flatter yourself," I said shortly. "I'm…intrigued by you."

"Intrigued."

"Yes. Your fiancé shows up dead, his brother gets kidnapped, and after finding out about both instances, you appear shaken at first but then go right back into life as usual."

"Got to get back up on that bicycle."

"No mourning period?"

"Maybe you're just not around to witness those moments, Jane."

"Do you want me to be?" She raised an eyebrow. "You have many friends, Maura? Anyone to confide in—girlfriends, pals?" Now she looked thoughtful. "Even one? You ever had a best friend?"

"No," she finally said thoughtfully.

That actually explained a lot. "Your attitude makes you a good suspect, but I've got a feeling you're not guilty. But that could also just be because I find you… deceptively complex, as are my emotions towards you."

"Which are what?"

While normally I didn't speak this freely in public, I wasn't too worried at the moment. The booths surrounding us were empty and a record was playing behind the bar. Nobody could hear us. "I could've taken you if I wanted to, Maura. I could've stripped you bare on that dingy mattress and had my way with you as long as I wanted, and you wouldn't have complained."

I paused to give her time to deny this, but she instead glanced briefly to the left before bringing the cigarette back to her lips, staring at me like an addict. So I continued feeding her habit.

"You'd have been offended when I got up and left in the morning, and never called. You'd have been upset that from there on in I treated our relationship as strictly business during the day. I wouldn't indulge in your cute flirting anymore. Maybe now and then I'd get bored, and mix business with pleasure again, and screw your brains out if I felt like it. You wouldn't have complained. You would've been happy to get whatever scraps I threw your way."

"You're an arrogant one, aren't you?" Maura asked, trying to look nonchalant but sounding shaken.

"I like to think of it as confidence gained by experience." She looked more turned around and confused than a Catholic in a synagogue. I leaned forward. "Maura, that's how I might have treated you. That's how it should have gone, how it's gone before. But I didn't want it to go that way this time."

Trying to sound disinterested, Maura asked, "No?" in a lofty voice. She took a regal puff on her cigarette, but didn't look quite so royal anymore. She'd been found out. I'd pegged her. She was the pauper masquerading as the prince, and the honesty in my tone was the seal giving her away.

"No," I replied. "Because you're different. You acted first, and yet you also showed restraint when you felt like it. You've been in control most of the time, and I'm not used to that—and frankly, I don't believe I like it. _I _like having the control, over myself, over the girl, over everything."

"Sounds like you and Adam would've been good friends," Maura snorted, and I could tell she was saying this only because it was one of the most insulting notions she could come up with.

I shook my head. "No chance in hell. From what I gather, Adam didn't appreciate you. You're smart, and I don't just mean book smart, although you'd have to be that to be a nurse. Nothing's easy with you, Maura, nothing's simple or black-and-white. You told me you're no good at lying, but that doesn't mean you can't muddy up your tracks now and then if you have to, am I right?" The fact that she didn't refute this guess testified of its truth. "Other women? Transparent. When they want me, they want me. When they're angry at men, they're angry at men. And I don't ever have to think about anything twice. But you've got me sitting and stewing and fighting to keep in control."

"Would you ever think of giving it up?"

"Only if I thought the gamble was worth the risk." I sighed and leaned back in the booth again. "What I'm trying to say is I think I'm getting too attached for my own comfort. I should be solving the mystery of Garrett's disappearance and Adam's death, but I'm so much more interested in solving the mystery of you—who you are, what you want. You've given me clues to piece together, you've shared important tidbits. But not all the pieces have come together yet."

At that moment, two new customers came into the bar and I instinctively glanced at them over Maura's shoulder. It was Korsak and Frost. The boss caught my eye and glanced at another booth. Frost, who cleaned up pretty nice in a suit, was trying to look innocent. I waved at Korsak, signaling I'd be with him in a moment, and the two of them went to sit down.

Noting my distraction, Maura asked, "Who is it?"

"My boss and my partner," I said. "Guess they knew they'd have a good chance at finding me here."

"What do they want?"

"I don't know. The boss wants to talk to me, though. I'll probably just be a minute; I'll ask Frost to come sit with you." This wasn't the type of place where a girl should be on her own. "Just one question though, Maura. How would you feel about Frost taking my place on this job?"

I might have just announced that Christmas had been cancelled. "What?"

"I mean it. Frost's the black man I work with." I had noticed all of her servants were white. "Would it bother you having him around?"

For a moment, she looked confused. Baffled. "Are you asking if I am prejudiced?"

I shrugged.

Maura sat up a little straighter. "This is what science knows, Jane, and therefore what _I _know: there are no superior races. Examine a man's brain—it tells you nothing about his race. The same goes for his blood; any nurse worth her salt would tell you that healthy blood plasma could save the life of any wounded soldier of any color. Skin color means nothing except that some people have a little more of a chemical called melanin in their skin, and that makes them look a little more like Lena Horne; others have more of a chemical called carotene, and that makes them look a little more like you or me."

I was stunned. I wondered if everyone in her corps had been this enlightened.

She wasn't finished. "We just ended a war started by two nations whose armies were built on the idea of race superiority and race inferiority, who were bent on murdering anyone who disagreed with them. I told any soldier in my unit who uttered a prejudiced word that if that's how he felt, he ought to go join up with Hitler or Hirohito. Those boys were happy to take in men who'd preach race prejudice, and I'd have been happy to let them—any man who'd mutter a word against his brother in arms based simply on his skin color? That man doesn't deserve to call himself an American."

Honest to God, she might have just hit me over the head with a baseball bat for as conscious as I felt. I'd never heard race relations broken down like that, to their bare bones, to their essence. Frost was my pal and I never thought much about his skin color, but I found myself wondering if I was so open-minded as I thought towards all the dark people I met. For Maura, it had seemed so natural, it sounded so obvious.

I'd only seen this fire in her eyes and heard this fervor in her voice when we'd been out to dinner the other night, and she had told me about her dreams of traveling the globe to help those in medical need. This was the way I imagine Ma wished I'd feel whenever I'd go to her favorite preacher's sermons: I was overcome with emotion, with gratitude, with humility. Even though Maura hadn't exactly been square with me all the time, I felt ashamed for how I had treated her back in her home not an hour ago.

Maybe she was too much of a flirt. Maybe she didn't show as much public grief as she should have when Adam Fairfield died. Maybe she spent too much money on clothes, on food, on décor, and maybe she was a little too accustomed to getting her way all the time.

But any high society white woman who could speak that way about my black partner was a woman with class.

She was a woman worth knowing and worth fighting for.

She was a woman who still needed her mind changed about some things, who could still easily be guilty of more than she let on, but I was convinced now more than I ever that I couldn't let Maura Isles out of my life. I was convinced now that I had been given the heart of the puzzle: now I needed to solve it in its entirety.

I couldn't say all that. I just reached across the table and took her free hand, clasping it tightly. While Maura's countenance had grown confident and a little agitated during her small speech, I saw it slip back into light confusion as I tightened my grip for a moment. She was reading my face, trying to see how we had gotten here—from my approved assault in her bedroom to this quiet moment in a public bar, squeezing her hand.

Before either of us could say anything, I stood up and walked towards the only other occupied booth, which held Korsak and Frost. I told Frost to go sit with Maura for a while, that it was all right, and I slid into his newly emptied seat.

"Frost said we might find you here," Korsak told me.

"Yup, well, he was right."

"Janie, I don't have time for small talk. I'll get right to it: Paddy Doyle crushed outta the big house."

Any of the warmth that had filled my body with Maura's declaration was zapped from me as fast and hard as the pain you feel when you rip off a bandage. "What?" I asked, the energy gone from my voice like the air wilting out of a deflated balloon.

"He's back."

To say this was merely bad would be like saying Hitler had been mildly unpleasant. Back in the days of Prohibition, Paddy Doyle was a big-shot, the biggest one of all. From what Korsak has told me, the movies have never been so far off in telling the story of the gang wars that sprang up over underground alcohol operations; in fact if anything, they'd soft-pedaled it. Doyle had been the most ruthless, the most brutal gangster of them all—his soul was so black, he couldn't have found a prayer in the Bible. His methods and his style were so violent, Hollywood would actually be punished by law if they ever tried to truthfully depict his story.

Anyway, Korsak had been the cop with a stroke of luck who managed to send Doyle up the river. According to prison guards and fellow inmates, Doyle had lost it a bit in the cooler. He wanted revenge and he was going to get it at any cost. And now he was back out on the streets. The mirror over Korsak's shoulder showed that the color had drained out of my face faster than ink spilled out of a broken pen.

"So you want me on his detail?" I asked.

Korsak shook his head. "Not exactly." He nodded over my shoulder and I looked at Frost and Maura, who were chatting like old pals. "Two things I can smell inside a hundred feet, Jane: burning hamburger, and romance."

I wondered if he'd seen me staring at Maura like a lovesick schoolgirl. I can't help it: she makes my head spin. "C'mon, old man," I scoffed. "Romance?"

"You slept with her, at least?"

"No."

"You've got a crush on her."

"We're attracted to each other. What's that all got to do with Doyle?"

The question hadn't even finished leaving my mouth before Korsak slid two photographs across the table. One was of a teenage girl with some schoolbooks pressed to her chest, her hair falling in gentle curls down her shoulders. The other was unmistakably of Maura, and it could have been taken yesterday. Two things were certain: the subject in both cases was Maura Isles, and neither time did she look as though she had been aware she was being photographed. I tucked the snapshots into my pocket.

"So?" I asked.

"Doyle had those."

"How'd you get 'em?"

"Cavanaugh. Apparently their cells were pretty close together, and he got a hold of these somehow. I visited him today—you know he's the one who suggested us to Maura and the Fairfields when Adam went missing."

"Yeah, I know. So…is Doyle …" I ran a hand through my hair. This made no sense. "He's been in prison since Maura was a kid. How could he—I mean, _why_ would he—"

"You remember his son, Collin?"

"Only what you told me about him. Wasn't he killed by a rival gang member? That's how you caught Doyle, wasn't it?"

"Yeah, Jane. But there were always rumors that Doyle had another kid." He looked at me pointedly, as if I needed more detail. "A daughter."

Even a kid with a dunce cap would know where this was going. "Impossible. No way."

"Why not? Mrs. Isles gets knocked up with Paddy Doyle's kid, doesn't tell her husband, and everyone assumes the girl is his. God help whoever Collin's mother was, but she probably wasn't a high-class broad like the Isles women are. And even if she was, you can raise a boy in Paddy's environment. You want your little girl to have the best life she can."

It wasn't often that Korsak rendered me speechless, but I was doing a pretty good pantomime at the moment. "Does she have any idea about these rumors?" I asked. My voice felt hoarse.

"That's what I need you to find out, detective. Keep working on the Fairfields, but you find out whatever sort of connection Maura Isles has got to Paddy Doyle. I want to know if she's his daughter, his niece, a dream girl, or what. If I know you, you've already tried charming the dress off her—and if you haven't yet, do it now. Understood?"

"Yes, sir." Damn. Just when I was starting to get to really like this girl.

Korsak picked up on the hesitation in my voice. "You said she's attracted to you, right, Jane? So it'll work. It's smart."

"Sure, yeah. It's smart." About as smart as cutting my throat open for some fresh air.

I stood up and motioned for Frost to switch with me again. Before we passed, I'd wondered if maybe Maura had given him her line about race prejudice. But it was clear just by watching them talk that she hadn't even needed to: he knew where she stood based purely on the way she had spoken to him.

"So?" she asked, now to the bottom of her beer. "Is Frost taking over?"

Instead of sitting back down, I reached for Maura's hand. "No," I said. "I'm staying on."

She stayed seated. "What made you change your mind?"

"Korsak just reminded me I don't start things without finishing them."

"And what happens when this is all over?" Maura asked, sounding world-weary. "You make the big money and you find Garrett, and you solve the mystery of whatever happened to Adam?" She waved her hand between us. "What happens to us?"

"I dunno. That's why I need your help figuring it out."

We left and got back into her chauffer's car again. She had trusted me and my honesty when I'd said I hadn't met a woman like her before. Maybe at first it had all been a sick game. Maybe I'd just wanted to get her in bed and damn the rest of it—the seduction, the romance—to hell. But it was true, I needed more now. And possibly, I was getting in way over my head.

There was a pack of newshounds at her door when we got there. Her chauffer wasn't much help in getting rid of them, and retreated fairly quickly back to the safety of the interior of the car. I pushed my way past Maura and into the thick of them, telling them to scram. How they'd already found out about Garrett's disappearance was beyond me, but those lousy boys would kill their own mothers for a shot at a good story. I'll bet every paper from the lowest rags to the glossiest spreads were represented in that mob. None of them moved aside until one guy got cute and tried ducking around me to get into the car through the door I'd left open. Maura was still sitting inside.

I grabbed him around the waist and yanked back, throwing him to the sidewalk. He landed on and broke his camera, which I didn't regret for a second. Scandal sheets were a big deal, and Maura didn't need her picture splashed across one more. Nobody deserved treatment like that, people pushing their noses up to the glass to harass her like they might an animal at the zoo. When I manhandled that one guy, everyone seemed to get the message that I meant business, and they pretty much scattered.

Once most of them had flown, I reached back for Maura and took her by the arm, pulling her up on her steps behind me.

It wasn't until we were safely alone in her house that she finally spoke. Her French maid and her butler were standing in the foyer, looking nervous. The man tried to start saying they had attempted to get rid of the reporters, but Maura cut him off. Not rudely, just to the point: she wanted them to retire. They did so silently.

Ever feel like you're playing out a scene from a movie, even when you're just living your life? It was hard to feel any way else when I had Maura standing with her back to the wall, looking up at me with reverence in those gorgeous eyes of hers for the first time, her face lit up only by the soft light coming from the lamp near her head. I put my palm up on the wall just over her shoulder and leaned closer, fully aware that I wasn't helping to make this look any less like a scene you might find on celluloid: the noble antihero, trying to claw his way out of whatever trap he'd slipped into, not knowing if he could trust the dame at his side, but not able to get rid of her either.

I was pretty sure I had her hooked. The bait was in the self-sacrificing bit: she'd already almost lost me tonight, and she didn't want to.

"Listen, baby," I whispered. All I was missing was a fedora. "If you don't want to lose that stardust look in your eyes, get going while the door's still open."

This is where the music would swell, and if she'd been aware she was playing a part, she'd have grabbed the collar of my jacket in desperation. Instead, all she did was look lost, torn. "What do you mean?"

"I mean you and the Fairfields hired me initially because you wanted to keep your names out of a scandal," I said. And what I was saying was true. "But this got too big. Word's out. You could probably do just as well, maybe better, with the cops helping you out. You could get a real bodyguard, not a screw-up like me. You stick with us, and you'll get grafters, shysters, two-bit thugs, and maybe worse—maybe me."

She took my free hand and pulled me into a kiss. My palm slid down off the wall and onto her shoulder, curling around her neck, bringing her closer. This was different from any kiss we'd shared before: it wasn't a competition, it wasn't dominated by either of us, it wasn't driven by pure animalistic arousal. I could taste the trust on her lips—even if she didn't trust me completely, even if she didn't trust me not to break her heart, she trusted me to do what it took to get this job done and keep her safe.

Hearing the breathlessness of her voice, I had to remind myself she was probably a little tipsy. But she definitely sounded determined when she said, "I like those odds. I'm sticking with you."


	10. Enjoying the Process

**A/N: **Phew. Writing this continues to be a bit of an exhaustive exercise, so I really appreciate the patience and feedback from you guys. References here are from _Cry Danger_, _Abbott & Costello in Hollywood_, and _The Big Sleep_, whose racehorse-dialogue is one of the best double entendre exchanges ever.

* * *

Perfect gentleman that I am, I did not sleep with Maura that night. I decided to do right by her kidnapped family friend and use the mattress he had acquired for me, even if it was about as comfortable to sleep on as a sack of potatoes. How's that for noble? If your gut feels pretty cynical right now, I guess there's a reason. When we got back to Maura's room that night, she made it very clear that we weren't going to share her bed.

I lay awake for what could've been hours trying to figure it out. Not to toot my own horn, but I think she's a little unnerved by how heavy her attraction is for me. If her words earlier tonight were to be believed, it's been pulling on her like a pair of custom-made concrete shoes, destination: bottom of the ocean. Everything I've ever seen Maura wear has been custom-made, I'm sure of it, from her dangerously heeled stompers to the tailored ecosystems posing as hats atop her head. I sort of have to feel for her. As brash as Maura acts, this is all still new territory for her. I know how it is to have your attraction for a dame pull the rug out from under you, and you don't like being on bottom.

So long as she can help it, she's not going to get into bed with me until she can figure out how to be on top.

Probably just as well. If Korsak's gut was right, I could be getting down and dirty with the daughter of one of Boston's biggest gangsters. The only custom-made thing I've got is the hole I've dug myself into with this broad, and if I'm not careful, we'll both wind up fox-trotting into it: now not only have I got to find Adam's killer, I've got to find that moron Garrett _and _try to sniff out any clues I could find about Paddy Doyle's connection to Maura Isles.

When I woke up, Maura was nowhere to be seen. I put on a shirt and slacks, but before leaving the room, picked up a bottle of wine from Maura's cabinet. Rather than try to hide it on my person, I simply went downstairs, where Maura's maid directed me to the back of the house. Dutifully I went over, expecting to find a yard. Instead what I saw was Maura doing laps in a swimming pool.

Of course.

I can just imagine a frustrated interior decorator trying to explain to me that the color of her suit is not white, but some variation of white that is the embarrassing step-cousin of the family, like eggshell or angel's kiss or some crap like that. A thick, jagged black line zig-zags down the center of the suit like a bolt of lightning, matching the color of the swim cap hiding all that luscious hair.

She was sleek in the water, like a mermaid; her form was perfect. I sat myself down on a chair by the edge of the pool, opening the bottle of wine as Maura came up for air.

"Bit early for that, isn't it?" she asked.

"Sweetheart, when you drink as much as I do, you've gotta start early," I replied.

Maura pushed herself out of the pool, bypassing the towel on the chair next to me and grabbing the bottle out of my hands. I frowned, but she didn't bend. In fact she just smirked, pushing the cork back into the bottle.

"You didn't bring any glasses," she said. "It's very uncouth for someone to drink wine right out of the bottle."

"True. Although you could argue that someone who was presumptive enough to take the bottle from your room clearly doesn't put much store by what would or would not be considered couth."

Maura appeared to think about it for a moment, then nodded and handed me back the bottle. I kept my eyes on her as I opened it again. Maybe she thought I was bluffing, or maybe she though I was stupid. Wine is supposed to be enjoyed, not chugged, but I went ahead and just gulped a bunch of it down anyway. To say it was an unpleasant experience would probably be on par with saying a guy finds it mildly uncomfortable when you kick him in the groin. But the glance I stole at Maura while I was doing it made it all worth it.

She was dripping wet and her lips were parted in quiet surprise. She licked and closed them a moment later when I finally set the bottle down on the small table next to me. We didn't talk for at least another minute, but I don't think we'd ever had a stage in our relationship where verbal communication was essential for comprehension. Her eyes were flashing like a train's warning lights, as if to say, _two can play that game_.

And oh, how they could. Maura peeled off her swim cap, throwing it down on the chair next to me along with the gauntlet. Her hair had been held back with several pins, all of which she took out with one hand before letting them clatter to the ground. The tiny but discernible noises nearly distracted me from watching Maura shake out her hair. It bounced and waved a little past her shoulders. Everything she did exuded confidence, a trait she was desperate to win back after letting her guard down last night.

God forbid sincerity ever win out for longer than an hour.

She walked towards the pool chair I was reclining on, then clambered gracefully on top of it, hovering over me. Her knees were on either side of my hips, one hand resting just above my shoulder as she leaned forward and reached for the bottle by my head. For a few tantalizing moments, her breasts hung directly over my face, but before I could do anything about that, Maura was resting her weight on her knees, the bottle of wine at her mouth.

Water was still dripping steadily from her body, now landing on me.

"Maura, you're getting me wet," I said.

The bottle was pulled free of her lips and somewhere, in my head or possibly the other side of the world, a geyser was going off. Maura bit her lip, running her thumb down the neck of the bottle before placing it carefully on the ground next to my chair. Her home plate was hovering just over my navel, and I could practically feel it pulsing. Here I was a on a precipice she had pushed me to yet again: she was waiting for me to either strike out or bat a thousand.

The pitch was expertly prepped and she threw it right to me: "That's exactly my intent," she murmured. That beautiful puss of hers betrayed the cat who ate the canary.

Time to level the field a little. I sat up, just enough so that one of my legs could rise beneath hers, and she let out the sexiest sound I think I've ever heard a woman make. It was a deep, repressed moan, quiet in reality but echoing throughout my entire body.

"You're not worried?" I whispered. "We're out in the open."

"In my yard," she countered, rubbing herself slowly down my leg.

Frankie used to want to be a fireman. We had a neighbor who worked for the local station, and he let me and Frankie try sliding down one of their poles ones. I was pretty slick, but Frankie squirmed and stalled and squeaked the whole way down. Once he reached the bottom, he tried to act as though he'd gone slowly on purpose.

That's sort of what came to mind when Maura was practically massaging herself against my leg. She liked to take her time. She was in no hurry. The fire was burning hot, but slowly.

"You don't think someone will see us in your yard?" I asked.

"Who, photographers? How would they get in?"

"I was thinking more along the lines of your staff."

That stopped her immediately, almost comically so. She glanced over at the window, where her maid was busily assorting some sort of breakfast tray. I could see Maura trying to figure out whether the woman had seen anything before she decided to get off me. I knew not to take it personally. She was still stuck on the way people might perceive her. In fact, I took it as something of a compliment that she had even gotten so invested in trying to start something in broad daylight.

She sashayed over to the other chair, which had a towel draped over the back. Her hips were mesmerizing. A wave on the ocean could never hope to mimic or better that sway.

"I'm going to need some new pants," I said as she started drying herself off. Late last night I'd gone back to my place for clothes, packing an overnight bag to bring back to Maura's. "I want to get started right away."

"But it's only just morning," Maura said. "Wouldn't you like some breakfast?"

"I'll have to take it on the fly. In my business, you've gotta get going right off."

"Or what?"

"Or the bulls beat you at your own game."

Maura tied the towel around her waist. "Got some sort of competition going with the police, detective? If you solve all this first, do you treat yourself to something nice?"

"I'm treating myself to something nice by staying on this case," I responded, nodding at her. She narrowed her eyes at me. I stood up, rolling my shoulders and walking towards her. "You're a funny girl, Maura." Now she cocked her head, giving me an almost rueful smile, and I found myself reading her eyes again: _I've heard that one before_. So I elaborated: "You're direct, and then you're not. I think I can see straight through your actions like a plane of glass, but then I get closer and see you've fogged it all up."

An airy laugh came bubbling out of her. "Don't misread me, Jane."

"Am I?"

"I just think we're very different. You like to get things done. You want to be first and foremost in everything."

"What's wrong with that?"

"Nothing, but it's a little tiresome. Dull, I mean."

"You calling me dull?"

"No," she said in a tone that was clearly meant to placate me. "I'm just saying, sometimes it's not about who gets there first. It's about…" Her eyes, two hazel orbs of dancing mischief, traveled noticeably south of mine. "Enjoying the process."

The French maid came out onto the patio, looking hesitant as an explorer about to brave the lip of an active volcano. "_Pardonnez-moi_, Miss Isles?"

"_Oui_, Simone?"

"_Monsieur_ Rockmond is on the telephone for you."

I raised my eyebrows and studied Maura's countenance carefully. "Mighty early for a house call, isn't it?"

"We had plans for today."

"Had?"

"Well…"

"Don't change them on my account."

She looked at me, testing me. I was being totally honest, and that appeared to translate well enough without my needing to say anything else. "Excuse me for a moment then," she said, walking towards the house. "Tell Simone what you'd like to eat, Jane."

"Adam and Eve on a raft, and wreck 'em," I told Simone. Probably a rude trick to pull on a foreigner, as evidenced by the utterly blank look on her face. I told her to forget it and just started walking towards the house, using the same path Maura had used. Simone caught up, desperate to understand what I'd just said. "It's just some Americano—scrambled eggs on toast. But you know what, dollface, don't worry about it."

"Doll face?"

"Yeah, you're real cute. Anybody ever tell you that?"

If I wasn't mistaken, I'd just caused Maura's French maid to blush. "_Merci_, detective."

"Uh…you're welcome." I stepped into the house and nodded at a telephone by the door. "Is this charming little instrument an extension?" She nodded and I put a finger to my lips before picking the phone up off its cradle.

Ever want to punch someone in the vocal chords because you hate their voice so much? I never would've even thought of it, but this Mr. Rockmond guy had to have the smuggest one I've ever heard. It's like if you stepped in some dog crap, then wiped it off on a grimy subway step rail, then it picked up an old cigar and tried to smooth-talk its way onto a lady's high heel. If that thing had a voice, it would have Dennis Rockmond's.

"_Aw, c'mon, Maura. You promised! Don't back out on me now."_

"_Well I've… I'll have to bring my friend along."_

"_Hell, if she doesn't mind, I won't! I mean—she isn't a dog, is she?"_

"_Dennis!"_

"_Kidding, Maura, just kidding! Look, does she like the race track?"_

"_I'm not sure."_

"_Bring her around for brunch at the Dixie Cup! I'll be waiting."_

I hung up the phone and turned to Simone. "Do you know where the Dixie Cup is?"

She rattled off the address and looked concernedly at me. "Is something the matter?"

"Au contairio, my dear. Just don't you breath a word to Maura about where I'm going or what I've done, all right?" Damn, I sounded chipper. I patted Simone on the cheek and then lit right out the front door.

My cab driver was kind enough not to make any smart remarks about my clothes, and we stopped briefly at my apartment so I could change. Nothing I'd taken to Maura's would have done right now, and besides, I didn't want her to see me again yet. I figured she'd realize where I'd gone, but I also figured she wasn't about to leave the house without showering and putting her face on.

I was a lot simpler. I threw on a crimson skirt and a draped black top, brushed my hair out a bit and put on some eyeliner. When I got back to the hack, my driver thought I was somebody else for a second. Perfect.

Once he dropped me at the Dixie Cup, I picked out Dennis Rockmond right away. His face matched that voice, all right. I remembered pictures I'd seen of him, and he looked even more slimy in person somehow. He was sitting at the bar, and every woman who passed by got the up-and-down. Maura had said she thought he was innocent, but at the moment I didn't want to just take her word. His face looked guilty of something, even if that something was just excessive lewdness.

Somebody had left a paper a couple stools away from him, and I went to sit by it. I ordered myself a cup of joe and pulled the newspaper over. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Garrett Fairfield's picture was plastered all over it. Now there was a toss-up between his mug and Rockmond's when it came to which one I think my fist would most like to rearrange.

"Hey sugar, are you rationed?" he asked.

I looked over at him, doing my best faked smile. "I beg your pardon?"

"Why don't you come on over here?" he asked, nodding towards the empty stool between us. "And bring that paper. I'll help you with the big words."

"Oh, thank goodness," I laughed, moving over. "This is all just gobbledygook to me! Now unless I'm much mistaken, it has something to do with Garrett Fairfield."

Dennis' smile faltered for a moment as he glanced at the photo. "Ah. Yeah, he'll turn up."

"You sound fairly certain of that, Mr…?"

"Rockmond," he said, extending a paw for me to shake. "Dennis Rockmond. Maybe you've seen my work—I'm a commercial artist."

"How nice. What makes you so certain that Fairfield will show up?"

"Ah, you know guys like that. They've got dough. And anyone with enough dough can pull himself out of any scrape. Say, how d'you like your coffee?"

"In a cup," I replied, promptly when it arrived.

He let out a whooping laugh, and I saw some people look up as if expecting to see a dying bird somewhere on the premises. "Boy, sister, you really are a gas! What's your name?"

"Jane."

"Beautiful."

"Mm. Thank you."

"Say, what's it take for a fella to get in good with you, Jane?"

"Interested?"

"I like what I see."

Well, there was certainly nothing opaque about _this _guy. "Ooh, see that?" I asked, pointing to a column on the front page of the paper. It was about Doyle's break-out. "I'm surprised that isn't getting a little more coverage."

Dennis played along, reading a bit of the column. "Patrick Doyle. Oh, yeah. Didn't he used to be a big-shot?"

"Used to." The bell above the diner's door rang, and I turned to see Maura walking in. "Hey! What's buzzin', cousin?"

I had to pat myself on the back for being able to speak at all when Maura was around. She was wearing an ornate, dark blue dress that clung to her perfectly. I had never understood the appeal of fashion until I saw Maura Isles walking around in what could only be described as works of art. But then, she was a work of art in herself. Her parents should've been awarded a medal.

"Hey, you two know each other?" Dennis asked, looking from me to Maura and back again. "Grab a seat there, Maura! We were just talking about Patrick Doyle."

"Who?"

Maura got up onto the seat on the other side of Dennis, and he shifted the paper towards her so she could see. "Doyle, remember ever hearing about him? That big-shot back in the day?"

I watched her carefully as she scanned the column. Her face was impressively passive to the point where I almost wondered if she even knew the name Doyle at all. But she had to. And there had to be a connection between her and him—why else would he have had photographs of her on his person?

"Broke out, huh?" she asked. "I suppose the police aren't as tough as I thought."

"Maybe Doyle's got someone on the inside," I suggested. "Could be in cahoots with a cop or somethin'."

She caught my gaze for a moment, but then dropped it along with the subject. "Dennis, I'm not hungry. Let's go to the track—I feel like dropping some samolians."

"Oh hey, was this your pal you were talking about?" Dennis asked. He gave me his best Errol Flynn grin and asked, "You like playing the horses?"

"You're above my pay grade, I'm sure."

"Nah, come on! It's great fun. You know, Maura never used to be into the bangtails either, until I got her tuned in."

"That so?" I asked her, smirking slightly. "Yeah, I have to say it seems like a fairly pedestrian activity for you to stoop to, Miss Isles."

"It's not all dumb luck; there's skill involved," she countered. "I like to play the horses, but I like to see them work out a little first—see if they're front runners or come from behind. You know, find out what their whole card is, what makes them run."

"Find out mine?" I asked.

"I think so."

"Go ahead."

Dennis might as well have been a post sitting between us. Maura surveyed me and finally said, "I'd wager you don't like to be rated. You like to get out in front, open up a little lead, take a breather in the backstretch, and then come home free."

"You don't like to be rated yourself."

"I haven't met anyone yet that can do it," she said, getting out a cigarette. "Any suggestions?"

I struck a match for her before Dennis could so much as get a hand in his pocket. "Well, I can't tell until I've seen you over a distance of ground." She leaned closer, cigarette poised dangerously between her lips. "You've got a touch of class, but I dunno how far you can go."

She reached for my hand, bringing it close enough to light her cigarette. When we both pulled back, she puffed a bit of smoke in my direction, passing over Dennis. "A lot depends on who's in the saddle."

"Well then!" Dennis said, slapping his hand down on the bar. "Looks like we'd better go inspect us some jockeys, then! Let me bring my car around, and we can blow this place." He grabbed his hat and headed jauntily out the door.

After a long and very loaded silence, Maura said, "Nice volley."

"That was fun, let's play again some time," I said, paying for my coffee and standing up. "Geez, Maura. That guy's a real dumb jackass!"

"Oh, don't I know it," she sighed, walking towards the door. "But I think I'm the bigger one for allowing him to keep spending time with me."

"Very kind of you."

"Incidentally, Jane." She paused at the door, holding it open. "Ever ride a jackass?"

"Actually no, I haven't."

She smirked and stepped onto the less-crowded street. "You better jump on my back sometime then and let me take you for a ride."

As if she hasn't already.

* * *

**A/N**: Please review if you're still reading and enjoying :)


	11. Creamed

**A/N**: Phew! Still (sort of) plugging away at this story. Things get a little thorny in this chapter, and I'd apologize or try to explain, but then I figured, hey. Just makes this mess even more like the blessedly confusing tangled web that was _The Big Sleep_. References herein include _Laura, The Damned Don't Cry, _and _Out of the Past. _

* * *

Naturally Maura got cute at the racetrack.

The three of us laid down our bets, Maura dropping more dough than Dennis has probably made in the last five years. Personally I wasn't too invested in any of the horses running, but out of habit I played along and pitched in. I couldn't pass on the opportunity to make a few bucks, even if I wound up losing some in the end. I figure that's the best approach to most things in life: risk the ride. If you don't, you'll always wind up wondering what could have been.

Whoops, excuse me for talking out of my philosophical ass for a second there.

Dennis clapped his hands together, still wearing that insufferable grin on his face. "So! Ladies, how shall we kill the time before the race starts?"

"I could go for ice cream, Dennis," Maura said, her voice sweeter than any dessert item could ever hope to be.

"An excellent choice!" he proclaimed. Judging strictly by the way he was looking at Maura, I guess he'd have had this reaction even if she'd suggested we all go inspecting the local septic tanks. "I think I saw a cart just down—oh, there it is!"

"You two go," I said. "I'll find us a table."

"Can we get you something, Jane?" Dennis asked. "Vanilla?"

Maura raised her eyebrows at me in faux innocence. Maintaining eye contact with her, I said, "My taste runs more towards strawberry."

And there went Dennis talking about excellent choices once again as he took Maura's arm and led her in the direction of the cart.

There was a small group of little round tables lined up just in front of the bleachers for the game. Each one had a fancy daisy-colored umbrella propped open on it, and each was currently taken. But I spotted one at the end near the ice cream cart where a man and woman were just getting up, collecting their things, leaving a second woman behind. I was wondering where I'd seen her before, and I realized we'd met at that underground club where I'd first seen Maura. I'd recognize this redheaded chick anywhere. She was slowly putting her things into her own bag, shooting furtive glances at the couple who'd just left.

"Excuse me," I said, walking over. "Are you about to vacate this table, by any chance?"

"Call me the wind, 'cause I'm gone," she said, putting her compact away and finally looking me in the eye. It's hard not to feel flattered when you make people's eyes go wide like that. She cleared her throat and sat a little straighter. "You… alone?"

It's even harder not to feel flattered when you've reduced someone to caveman speak. I sat down next to her and nodded in the direction of the ice cream cart, where Dennis and Maura were last on line. "Those are my pals over there," I said. "I promised to flag down a table." Their arms were still linked together, and Maura was laughing at some story Dennis was telling. Even from here I could tell her laughter was about as sincere as a gangster's deathbed repentance.

"Get a load of those lovebirds!" chuckled my redheaded friend.

Dennis' hand was creeping towards Maura's backside, and I wondered if there were any security guards on hand to give the guy a bum's rush out if he got too indecent. "Nothing like advertising," I said.

"And they're leaving their droppings all over the place." The woman's smile faltered when Maura glanced over her shoulder to grin and wave at me. "Blow me down and pick me up! Is that Maura Isles?"

"Yes indeedy."

"I'd watch myself if I were you, sister."

"Why's that?"

She leaned closer, lowering her voice even though there was no need to. Whispering helps people feel either important or intimate, I've found. I think this woman wanted to send both messages.

"I went to school with that chippy. She's got real round heels." (I tried to look surprised, as if I didn't wasn't wise to just how easy it was to roll Maura right into bed.) "She was a real nut, too."

"How d'you mean?"

"Dangerous. She had this way of always just sort of slanting the truth enough to avoid having to go to confession for lying. With that face and those gams? She never got into trouble. There were rumors, though."

"What sort?"

"Types of trouble she might have gotten into with …types of men," the woman answered lightly. "Garrett Fairfield, for instance. Not a lot of people know this, but he and Maura were somewhat seriously involved just after high school, even though it'd pretty much been decided that she'd marry the oldest brother in the bunch. Oh I don't think there was ever any _romance_ with Garrett, but…" She laughed, and it was a strange sound. "The played a bit of patty cake, if you catch my drift."

I caught it all right, even if it _was _a curveball. After years of experience, I had learned how to tell gossip from speculation based on fact. And this wasn't gossip. This broad was on the square.

"How'd you find out about her and Garrett?" I asked.

"Oh, I have my ways," she said. Any air of mystery she had been aiming for was lost instantly when she again leaned in close. "I saw them rattling a few drawers in a classroom after hours, once. I'd been staying late for the yearbook committee, and I don't think they knew anyone else was still around. Phew!" She leaned back, watching Dennis and Maura order their ice cream. "I may have to get some of that myself to cool off!"

"Know when they stopped doing the deed?" I asked.

She shrugged. "I can't say for sure, but I figure Garrett was always jealous that the family lined Maura up with Adam. Maybe his parents told him to lay off."

Instantly I thought of Patrick Doyle, and Korsak's guess that Maura was really his daughter. "Do you think maybe one of Maura's parents might've been disapproving?" Yup. It was the bottom of the barrel, and I was scraping it.

"Oh, I don't know!" the girl laughed. "They were always traveling. I don't think they could've cared whether Maura slept with Adam, Garrett, or the President of the United States, so long as she kept her mouth shut about it—and she always was good at keeping secrets. So long as the Isles could go around high-hatting us poor simple folks, I really don't think anything else would matter."

"Say honey, you'd better blow," I said, when Maura and Dennis started approaching the table.

"Roger that. It's been swell talkin' to ya!" she giggled.

It took me all of about two seconds to figure why Maura had been hungry for ice cream and not some other snack. The moment she sat down, I wanted to ditch Dennis—not to have Maura to myself for pleasure, but to force some real information out of her for once.

But Maura wanted to play first.

"Vanilla for you, hm?" I asked Maura, as I took my cone from Dennis. She nodded and I asked him, "What do I owe you?"

"It was my treat," Maura answered before Dennis could so much as open his yap.

I raised an eyebrow at Dennis. "That's refreshing," I said. "A man who's willing to let a woman pay."

"Yes, well, she was quite insistent," Dennis chuckled. "And you know Maura!"

I turned my eyes to Maura, but addressed Dennis. "Do I?"

"She can be mighty persuasive when called upon!"

"That so?"

They both saw I might have been addressing either of them now, and Dennis took a large, sloppy lick at his scoop of pistachio. Maura's pinky was slightly extended as she held up her cone. "You tell me," she said.

There was certainly nothing subtle about the way Maura proceeded to eat—at least, not to me. In fact, she was about as subtle as an anvil to the head. Yet Dennis looked pretty ignorant, content to sit there and eat and occasionally glance at the race track while he waited for Maura to finish.

She ran her delicate pink tongue from the tip of the vanilla white mound down to the top of the cone. Dennis had started asking me if I was familiar with some of his work, and I mentioned the name of some paper I'd seen an illustration of his in, and that somehow led to the beginning of a monologue about his outstanding and brilliant career. All I had to do while he bumped his gums was give him an occasional "mm-hm," which was easy enough as my mouth was already occupied with strawberry-flavored ice cream. My eyes remained steadfastly on Maura, who had to drop her own occasionally to keep sure of her technique.

Maybe this ice cream was just bland, but it didn't taste as sweet as those lips of hers.

I preferred not to show off, or at least show my hand, as much as she was. I opened my mouth wide enough to slurp down a large portion of the strawberry, enjoying the sensation of letting the coolness trail my upper lip.

"…which is when I figured hey, this whole Rockwell business—say, Jane! You better be careful not to eat too much of that so fast! It'll freeze your brain! Isn't that right, Dr. Isles?" Dennis asked in that annoying good-natured voice of his. I could see Dennis hadn't made much progress in his ice cream, which I guess isn't surprising considering how much yammering he'd been doing, like a lecturer hopped up on happy pills.

"You really should slow down Jane," Maura said in her syrupy way. What a pip. She really _was _enjoying this. This time when her tongue dipped down, she swirled it all the way around the small mound before pushing it into the middle, lapping it like a cat—when I watched her tongue go back in, I saw just a peek of vanilla on the tip.

This wouldn't have been quite so tortuous if I wasn't uncertain whether she was playing me for a sucker or not.

I reached the end of my cone first, but waited to see her move before I did anything too unsavory. Once her ice cream was level with the top of her cone, she straightened a little in her chair and rested her elbow on the table. She might have been about to make a toast with a flute of French champagne. Instead, she dipped that fearless tongue of hers back down to get at the rest of her treat, slowly turning the cone so her outstretched tongue could gather as much of the vanilla as possible. The circular motion made me think of the racetrack we were at, how there was no chance in hell we'd be around long enough to see who won.

My turn at bat. In a move one of my friends had innocently taught me, I bit off the bottom of the cone and started to suck. I closed my eyes, and it was suddenly very easy to picture that I was doing something else, and Maura's short, almost indiscernible gasp was a tremendous aid in that effort. I nibbled off a little more, letting the strawberry drain into my mouth.

"…but I've always thought it should be more about your _inner _winner, rather than all the awards and—Jane, is that really an effective method?"

A schmuck like Dennis _would _ruin my fantasy. I snapped my eyes over to him. "Works for me," I said.

"Not me," Maura piped up. "Dennis, be a dear and find me a spoon, would you?" He obligingly stood up, and once his back was to us, Maura got to her feet as well. "Let's go," she said crisply to me.

At my recommendation, we took a cab to my apartment. I led Maura to believe I was thinking of the newshounds and help at her home, but really it was because I needed the home court advantage. No wine, no candles, no barber talk. Straight to it.

I locked the front door. "Can I ask you something, Maura?"

"Well, you've clearly already done so," she said with a smug grin, shrugging off her coat. "But you may ask me something else, yes. What is it?"

"You spoken with the police yet?" I asked, heading for the kitchen. "Surely they must have asked for some sort of get-together after your fiancé showed up dead."

"They've been keeping their distance, actually," she replied.

I could have asked for more explanation, but I didn't need it. Of course families as loaded as the Fairfields and the Isles could afford shysters who'd keep the police at bay, all under pretense of the need to grieve. Lawyers are on the last rung as far as I'm concerned—especially ones with rich clients. Sure my morals are pretty nonexistent, but at least that gets me someplace. Mouthpieces like the ones who'd kept Maura and presumably the other Fairfields from the harsh interrogation they deserved? Nope.

"Ever been arrested?" I asked, opening a drawer by the hot plate I never used.

Maura had walked over to see what was keeping me. "As a matter of fact, no," she said.

Easy enough to believe someone like her had never been pinched, much less been seen in the big house. "Never even been pulled over?" I tried, turning to face her with my hand in the open drawer. She was eying it closely. "Never had to walk a straight line for some bull just 'cause you tipped a few too many?"

"No."

I pulled a billy club out of the drawer before snapping it shut, and I slapped it into my open palm. Maura's trap fell open as I took a step forward. "No, what?" I whispered.

"No sir," she said breathlessly, as if a ghost had just passed through her.

Her eyes swung up and down with the night stick as I brought it down one, two, three more times into my hand with each step. "Would you like a practice interrogation?" I asked, knowing I wouldn't have to wait for an answer. The look in her eyes said enough. "Turn around," I whispered. "Get those mitts up against the wall."

Although she obliged, she couldn't help turning her head to try and look at me over her shoulder. "This is customary for interrogations?"

"Have to make sure you aren't armed, first."

Hiding a weapon under her dress would've been about as easy as charting a flight to the moon, but if anyone could've done it, it would've been Maura Isles. I traced my hands down her arms, then slowly down her sides.

If I may, just a moment to disprove one of my brother's notions: Tommy has it in his head that women are like cars. Fast, powerful, beautiful. To be used. The comparison always bothered me, but not because I'm a woman and found it offensive. Tommy's a jackass and always says stuff like that. But really, there's just one way to start up a car. Fire up the engine, and no matter the model or the year, you're good to go. Women are so much more complicated. I had already set Maura's engine ready to combust in so many ways, all of them different and each of them deliciously effective.

When my hands reached her hips, she arched her ass out towards me with a soft moan, as if it was an automatic reflex. One I took full advantage of, I admit. It's like her ass was sculpted to be fit just for my palm and my fingers, and it would be a royal waste to pass on the opportunity to bring them together like they were clearly intended to be. Then I moved one hand up to her breasts, and also must admit it was difficult to retain a joke about checking for booby traps (wouldn't you have said it, though?). She moaned again, longer, louder this time.

"Is that…everywhere?" she asked, still breathless.

"I don't know," I said, kissing a spot behind her ear. "Is it?"

My right hand rested on her hip, and the left came around to the front, still clutching the billy club. I used it to touch her knee, then moved it slowly upwards. Normally I think Maura would have probably complained about the astronomical dry-cleaning bills I was about to foist upon her, my dirty nightstick dragging up the fabric of her custom-made dress, but money clearly wasn't on her mind right now. The club reached her thigh, and I rubbed it slowly back and forth.

Her head dropped and she took a sharp gasp. Her legs were already quivering. She was a spinning top starting to wind down.

"I've got just one question for you, Miss Isles."

"Detective?"

I pressed myself flush against her, lifting the club higher. "Was Garrett Fairfield a good lay?"

"What?!"

"You heard the question. Was. He. A Good. Lay?" I stepped back enough to allow Maura the space to turn around, which she wasted no time doing. But before she could do much more than catch my eye, I grabbed her wrists and held them above her head. "You aren't leaving, Maura." I banged the club against the wall by her leg. "Not until I've gotten the straight skinny from you."

When we were all kids, Frankie caught a mouse and kept it shut up in a box in his room. He had it there for days before I happened to find it, and the thing emanated fear like a perfume. He was shivering in the far corner of the box, scared, caught.

That was the look Maura was giving me now.

"Jane, I trusted you," she said shakily.

"And I've tried trusting you. But you batted those eyelashes and crossed your legs at me so many times, you got me to fall like an egg from a tall chicken. I don't like being lied to, Maura."

"What a happy coincidence," she said. "I don't like lying." Her attempt at scorn was about as convincing as a toddler's attempt to act tough.

What's more, I didn't buy it. "Yeah? Do you love it? Cause it seems to me you've been making an art form out of manipulating words. You oughtta be in pictures, sweetheart."

"So should you. Or you should at least be in some line of work that doesn't require—"

"Following my gut?"

She snorted. "You shouldn't listen to your intestines, Jane."

Refusing to acknowledge what she had just said, I whispered, "I'm gonna ask you a straight question, and I want a straight answer. Have you ever slept with Garrett Fairfield?"

The loudest silence of my life passed before she said, "Yes."

"How many times?"

It was clear she had to bite her cheek, probably to keep herself from reprimanding me for my perceived impertinence. This was no longer about jealousy; it was about the case. I couldn't let myself get soft for a legitimate suspect.

"Once," she finally said.

"When?"

"High school. We were kids, just fooling around."

"Do most men you fool around with go disappearing days after their brothers have been murdered?"

"Oh yes, a fair majority, I'd say."

"That sarcasm, Dr. Isles?"

"I thought that was a quality you liked in a woman, Detective Rizzoli."

"Not when I've got a somebody zotzed and somebody snatched, with one person linking them together."

"You think I'm responsible for this."

"Here's all I can figure, Maura. You went out of your way to avoid telling me you and Garret had a relationship."

"We did not have a relationship!"

"You had relations, then."

"Once! Years ago!"

"Ever wonder why Adam wouldn't sleep with you, Maura? Is it because he found out? Is it because someone told him his baby brother had taken the bloom off the rose?" Her face was harder to read now, but it was also hard. I knew I was making her furious. I had long since released her hands, and although she had lowered her arms, she had made no move to get away from the wall. I leaned closer. "You been trying to make a chump out of me, Maura? Stringing me along? Avoiding the cops so your name won't get spread any more in the scandal rags—well guess what, it's too late now. So what's the excuse, huh? You waiting for me to cave? Waiting for me to give it to ya?"

She drew the line at further action: I accented the last question by sweeping the billy club between her legs. It had been impulsive. Maura finally shoved me away and took a step forward from the wall.

"Jane, you're involved now. I've been trying to protect you."

"From what? I'm a big girl, Maura, I can take care of myself. You've been playing innocent, and you've been keeping things from me. From where I stand, that's obstructing justice. So what is it, Maura? Are you getting something from it, or is it just habit now? Is it just that you're used to lying and cheating and double-crossing? Because hell, you can almost make it seem good."

"I can't believe I thought I needed you," she spat. "Sure, I need you. I need you like the axe needs the turkey."

"That the beginning of a confession?"

"What difference does it make? You've already made up your mind I'm guilty."

I held my hands up. "Nope. I haven't. Not if you can convince me otherwise."

"You manhandled me."

"You wanted me to."

"Well if I'd known this was what you had in mind, I'd have been singing a bit of a different tune."

"Yeah? How did you see this conversation unfolding, then?" She pursed her lips and I forced myself to say strong. I didn't care if she gave me the Bambi eyes or let me screw her on the side of the bed—I wasn't going to let her get away with anything. "Scout's honor, Maura. I like you. I'll be damned if I know why, but I like you. Or _liked _you. I thought you felt the same way."

"I did," she said, regret laced into her voice.

"Then why did you hold out on me?"

"I had reasons."

"If someone's threatening you, Maura, I can protect you. You know that, right? You need to trust me enough to do that. It's simple. This isn't the type of thing you can only do halfway. What I need to know is whether I can trust you."

"What does your gut tell you?"

"Hard to say. It's fighting for control against something else."

I could see her trying to work it out: my brain, my heart, or lower even than my gut? Then she shook her head and checked the door, making sure it was locked. She walked to the window, made sure I was shut, then drew the curtains closed. She sat herself primly on the sofa and waited for me to join her, which I did only after letting the billy club finally drop the floor. I had noticed the end of it wasn't as dry as it had been when I'd first pulled it out of the drawer, but I didn't bother mentioning that to my affronted guest/suspect/possible ally.

"What precisely do you know about Patrick Doyle?" she asked me. I don't blame her for looking confused when I laughed. "Care to fill me in on the joke?"

"Maybe in a minute." I jabbed my thumb over my shoulder, indicating my back. "Incidentally, Maura, _you _ever ride a jackass?"


	12. Of All the Gin Joints

**A/N**: So...wow, it's been a while since the last update. But this story is almost done, so that's good, I guess. Then I won't feel guilty for sucking at updating it! It'll be just a thing that happened, and that will be that. References here in are to _Shadow of a Doubt_, _Pick-Up on South Street, Casablanca, This Gun For Hire, Charade, Lady From Shanghai, _and _The Women_.

As for the characterization of Doyle, I see him as an old-fashioned chauvinist. So in the '40s, I think he'd have probably been just a very extreme version of that. And I don't like that his character fell prey to the glamorization of gangsters, so... yeah. Sorry about that.

* * *

It's a scary thing to wake up and realize you're handcuffed to a bed in a dark room.

And that's not a metaphor for anything.

One minute, I'd been sitting on the sofa in my apartment, listening to Maura tell me about her lousy childhood: how she found out she'd been adopted, how those adopted parents had never really seemed to care about her. How she'd been held up at home once by her birth father, who was in need of medical assistance and put her wise about his relationship to her. How she'd been made to treat him while Doyle's trigger man held a rod to her head. How Doyle had told her he was proud of all her accomplishments and that she deserved the best.

How he'd promise to intervene if he ever thought she wasn't getting top dollar in every aspect of her life.

Around that point I'd offered to get her a drink, and she said she'd get one herself. She brought one back for me, too, and that's when I should have been suspicious. But I was so engrossed in her story I wasn't thinking straight.

I guess I got a mickey from Maura.

The room I woke up in was a far cry from my apartment. My place might not be fancy or high-class, but at least it's homey: this place was a wooden crate for all intents and purposes. No decorations, no furniture and no music playing unless you counted some water dripping somewhere in the distance. I moved to sit up, and that's when I realized I was cuffed. To be specific, I was cuffed to a brass headboard behind me. Both hands. The mattress I was laying on was white, stained, and purely utilitarian.

Like…me?

"You're awake." I heard someone strike a match behind me. "Good." It was a man's voice, deep and scratchy enough to sound like the one Ma says I'm going to get one day if I don't stop smoking cigars and drinking so much whiskey.

I strained to try and look over my shoulder, but a few moments passed and made the move unnecessary. Paddy Doyle walked slowly into my peripheral vision on the left side, flanked by two torpedoes who were both carrying iron. Then I saw Maura coming in on my right, until all four of them stood at the foot of the bed. A sane person would have probably been pretty scared right then, but sometimes I seriously question my sanity. All I felt was anger and a sense of betrayal which I probably didn't deserve.

"Jane Rizzoli," Doyle said, taking a big puff of his own cigar. "I've heard of you." Guys like this, I can't ever picture what they might have looked like as kids. He was probably born smoking that thing, wearing that smirk. Is that what my smirk looked like all the time? Pretty ugly stuff. "You know who I am," he prompted me.

I was determined not to look at Maura. Keep the focus on Doyle. I sighed like I was bored, like I wasn't handcuffed to a bed, God knows where. "Jimmy Durante?"

Doyle looked at me for a second, then laughed. His goons joined in, and I took the moment to steal a glance at Maura. She was eying Doyle warily, and only after a few moments did she chuckle as well. But the laughter all stopped abruptly when Doyle's face became hard and serious. He walked over to the side of the bed and leaned over me, his cigar dropping embers onto my shirt.

"Think you're mighty cute, don't you, _detective?_" he asked, and I knew he didn't take my title seriously at all. "Thought you'd buddy up to my daughter and try to find me that way, huh? Make a name for yourself, get a little recognition? I don't think so." When I flicked one of my wrists, he grabbed it, and I admit I might have been a little scared at that point. "_I don't think so_," he repeated. "Nobody uses my daughter, understand? Not as a stepladder to success _or _to bring me down."

"Noted," I said dryly.

His smirk turned into more of a snarl, and I wondered vaguely if this was what a mouse felt like right before it knew a snake was going in for the kill. "Trying to be smart, huh? Let me tell you something, Miss Rizzoli, you're doing all this for nothing. You're risking your life and your reputation for _nothing. _Don't you wanna know how I know about you? I keep tabs on anyone I think might try to make trouble for me. And I got word on this skinny, greaseball dyke who fancied herself a detective. You gamble too much, you drink too much, and you're getting no place. You're not a real cop, and you'll never _be _a real cop. Get me? You'll always be a two-bit cannon, and someday when they pick you up in the gutter dead, your hand'll be in a drunk's pocket."

Somehow, his rambling made me less afraid of him. Maybe that's because I _knew _he was just trying to scare me. A man like Paddy Doyle wouldn't kill me, a woman, even if he did think I was one of nature's mistakes. I had to call him on his game: "You're grandstanding, chrome dome."

The smirk came back. "Despise me, don't you?"

"If I gave you any thought, I probably would."

"Doyle." Looks like Maura had finally decided to speak up. Her father looked as if he'd been about half a second away from slugging me across the face when she took a step forward. "I think you should let me handle this."

"Maura, this woman used you."

"Yes," Maura said, looking at me through those hooded hazel eyes of hers.

"She used you to get to me. She's a _female_," he said, like the word was the filthiest one he knew. "You can't trust 'em any further than you can kick 'em."

"Let me spare you the indignity of having to kick her yourself, then," Maura said, looking back at Doyle, who had since straightened up again. "I'd like to have the chance to avenge my pride, if I may."

Doyle stood up, and he put his hand on Maura's shoulder. I could tell he was trying to read the look in her eyes, and I could further tell she wasn't giving anything up. He looked back at me and said, "I gave up my daughter so she wouldn't spend her whole life slumming with the likes of people like you and me. If you were a man, you'd be wearing a pine overcoat right now, sister. But I think maybe this time, I'll let you off with just a little disciplining."

He nodded at his hatchetmen, and the three of them walked towards a door I'd just noticed on the left side of the room. Doyle was the last one to leave, his hand on the knob as he addressed Maura once more: "Take your time. We'll be waiting."

The door slammed with a bang, like a death knoll. With Doyle finally gone, I tried to sit up a little, although my positioning made that difficult. Maura made no move to help me, seemingly content to simply watch me struggle, instead. A bead of sweat was trickling down my forehead, and I cursed my restraints for keeping me from being able to brush it away. My breathing had gone ragged all of a sudden, and it got worse when Maura walked slowly over, then sat on the edge of the bed next to me.

"Goodness, Jane," she whispered. She took out a kerchief and wiped my brow. "You look as though you've been on a hayride with Dracula!"

"Where the hell am I?"

Maura frowned and got back to her feet. "Doyle's HQ," she said. "And you don't have to look so scared, Jane."

"I'm not gonna let you make a sucker out of me again."

"Don't you trust me?"

"Who trusts anybody?" I sneered. "If you're really gunning for me, why don't you let me out of these handcuffs?"

She shrugged. "Simple. I haven't got the key. Do you want to know what I _do _have, Jane?"

No.

It didn't matter that I hadn't said the word out loud; she'd have kept going anyway. She stooped and I saw her pick up my own billy club off the floor. She slapped it into her open palm and said, "I have you all to myself for as long as I wish—that is, for as long as I can keep Doyle's punks convinced that you are being properly… _disciplined_." She slapped the billy club against her palm again, this time letting her fingers wrap around the top. "So you know what that means you're going to have to do."

"I…"

"Yes," she purred, and before I knew it, she was straddling me on the bed, her knees on either side of my hips. She was wearing a teal silk skirt, which she had lifted slightly before getting on the bed, and now it rested just below her thighs. Her long-sleeved lavender shirt had a shockingly low neckline, and I'm guessing it was intended to have another shirt beneath it—a step Maura had obviously skipped. Hovering over me, she was giving my eyes a direct look at her cleavage. I told myself it didn't matter if I was drooling, because I couldn't have reached over to wipe it away if I'd wanted to.

Curse this broad.

When she continued speaking, it took me a second to remember she was saying what it was I had to do: "You've got to scream for me, Jane. You've got to whimper, moan, and shout loud enough for those hoods out there to hear you."

"No," I choked out. A villain like Patrick Doyle could get the drop on me, but I refused to let Maura do it again.

"No?" she chuckled. "Jane, you are completely at my mercy."

"I want some answers first," I said, trembling.

A glimmer of softness passed through her eyes, but she didn't let it linger for long. "You want to know how you got here."

"Yeah, there's a start."

"Here's another start," she murmured, and she began slowly undoing the buttons of my white shirt. "I had to slip you something in your apartment, Jane. Once you were passed out, I dropped a line to Doyle. I had him come pick me up."

I groaned, but not because of what she was saying. She had just leaned over to kiss my newly-exposed collarbone, and I could not keep my hips from rolling upwards. What the hell was wrong with me? This woman had drugged me, helped get me kidnapped, and had presumably looked on while I'd been handcuffed to this bed. How could I be getting aroused?

Like a carnival psychic, Maura apparently read my mind and said, "Your brain and body are at odds, detective. Don't worry; I assure you that you are experiencing very proper physical responses to the stimuli I'm providing."

"Proper?" I snorted. "There's nothing proper about this, Maura. You're a double-crosser."

"Yes," she whispered. "I am." I knew she couldn't lie, and yet the utter lack of apology in her tone angered me beyond reason. I yelled wordlessly: I was hurt, and I was furious that she sounded so casual in her disclosure of what she really was. Her eyes were glued to mine, and I saw reflected in them the calm before the storm. With one hand she brushed all her hair over one shoulder, then leaned in close, her breath hitting my ear as she continued: "You're not the one I double-crossed."

"What?" I breathed. Were I physically able to do so at the moment, I'd have given myself a pat on the back for being able to say anything at all with Maura Isles sucking on my earlobe like it was the sweetest piece of candy she had ever tasted.

She pulled back enough to look me in the eye again. "You're not the one being double-crossed," she repeated. I felt dazed. Could she really be on my side? Did she have to be rubbing around my navel while we had this conversation? A thin grey undershirt separated her fingers from my bare skin, but I still could hardly handle it. "Can you believe me, Jane, please? Trust me enough to protect you."

"I…I…"

Maura shifted her weight, one knee resting between my legs as she kissed my neck. "Make them think you're hurting," she whispered. "If they're not convinced, they'll think I've gone soft, and we'll both be in the soup."

"You're…"

"Give me one more moan, Jane, please. Just one." She cupped me through my pants, and I heard a distinctively feminine, un-me like gasp come out. "Louder," she breathed into my ear. "Let it out, Jane, _louder_."

There was a lion bursting to get out of my chest, and it was having a hell of a time getting up my throat. Maura's grip got harder, and she bit my shoulder. I yanked and the cuffs held me in place, and I let it out. I moaned. It was more of a wail, actually. Like I was dying but I didn't care, because the sweet messenger of death looked like, smelled like, felt like, and tasted like Maura goddamn Isles. I knew it was screwed up, and I knew I was playing into her hands, but I couldn't help it: my frustration (sexual and otherwise—not being able to move) was killing me, and I'd had to verbalize it somehow. It felt good to get the groan off my chest. It might have indicated either pain or pleasure.

And it seemed that Maura was satisfied, at least for the moment. "Let me bring you up to speed," she whispered, her slender fingers working to undo the button on my trousers.

"Maura," I breathed out, and she halted. "If you want me to listen to another word, you have _got _to stop what you're doing for a second."

"All right," she agreed, kneeling again. "As I told you in your apartment, Patrick Doyle is my father. He's been in prison for so long, I thought maybe I'd never be bothered by him again. But he broke out, and then my fiancé—my fat, lazy, neauvo-riche fiancé—disappeared."

"You've suspected him this whole time?" I asked. My breathing was still ragged, like I had just finished running a marathon or two. Or twelve.

"I've been unsure," Maura said slowly. "I didn't even know that he had escaped until after Adam went missing."

"And you didn't care he'd been killed?"

"I've told you," Maura whispered. "I wasn't in love with him. I'm sorry he died, I truly am, but I'm not a grieving widow."

"One good thing about being a widow? You don't have to ask your husband for money."

"True. Although the same can be said for a woman who's financially independent," Maura said back.

"Are you gonna lie down, or just stay like that?" I asked. "It sounds like this story's gonna take a while, and I'd _hate _for you to get tired."

"I don't need to lie down," she responded crisply.

"Right, you can lie from any position, can't you?"

"Will you just shut up?" she sighed. "I'm trying to be honest with you, Jane. Blood runs thick in my clan, Doyle's clan. He had Adam killed, and I know he had Garrett kidnapped when he thought Garrett might be asking for my hand next. We can find him if we work together, I know it."

Know it. I hadn't known anything for sure for a long time, not since I'd met her. From the very moment I'd met Maura Isles, I realized I hadn't really used my head at all except to think about her. I loved her. I hated her. So I couldn't get her out of my mind for even a second. I had never wanted to believe so badly that someone was honest as I did in that moment, as she knelt over me.

"You and Doyle, you don't play by the rules," she murmured. "But you've got a purpose behind your ideas, Jane Rizzoli, and he doesn't. He has what you might call a cold heart. Vengeance weighs on his mind constantly. I don't want him coming into my life all the time, calling violent, bloody shots. I want to do what you do, and take control of my life in my own way."

"Did he get in touch with you, or you with him? I mean, how'd you get his phone number?"

"One of his men got it to me. I was to use it if I ever felt threatened. And I figured after a while that he was probably having me followed, so I decided to call you in before he ever got to you himself."

"Why not just let him kill me?"

It had been a stupid question, so I deserved the look from Maura that I got, which might have sufficed if I'd just asked her why fish can't live out of water.

"Because even though you snark, even though you belittle, and even though you've had an extremely twisted way of trying to get around me to solve this case," Maura borderline-growled, "I know you care about me, Jane. Doyle doesn't."

"But you just said blood—"

"—is thicker than water, but that doesn't mean he understands me," Maura said. "You do, Jane. You do. So I made sure Doyle brought you here, and he wanted to tie you to a chair, but I suggested the handcuffs and the bed."

I pulled at the cuffs and let out an exaggeratedly aggravated yell, mostly for the men outside to remain convinced I was being tortured. And in a way, I was. Under my breath, I called Maura a name that wouldn't be used in high society outside of a kennel. She smiled at me, and somehow I felt relaxed. Which was strange, considering the circumstances.

"I knew as long as I was here, you'd be safe," she went on. "Together, we can bring this man to justice. So you see? It's all right for you to trust me, Jane. So…" She picked up the billy club from where she'd left it on the bed, and after catching my gaze briefly, slipped it into my pants.

That one got another rattling gasp out of me, I admit. I'm about as accustomed to other women taking charge of me as I am to singing in the rain. But considering how much I'm enjoying this, I may have to try a little sing-song the next time it rains.

Maura rolls the club in her hand, and my back arches off the bed. Anything to get as close to her as possible. The cuffs still hurt, but suddenly it's a good kind of pain, like the kind you get when you know a broken limb is healing.

"So," Maura said in a shuddering whisper. Slowly she pulled the club out, letting its now-wet tip graze under my shirts, up my stomach. "You don't have to feel guilty about…" She brought the club up to her eyes, inspecting it. "This."

There was a sharp knock on the door, followed by Doyle's sharper voice: "Maura, I think that's long enough. You coming?"

Maura returned her gaze to me, whispering, "I think one of us was about to." She raised her voice enough to say, "I think I've nearly broken her."

"Well, hurry up. I'll be down the hall when you're done."

"Let me see if I have this right," I muttered. "You slipped me a drug, got Doyle to kidnap me, handcuff me to a bed, all so you could…"

"Top you? Yes," Maura said, so matter-of-factly she might have just been announcing the weather. "Well, that was a side-perk, anyhow. Mostly I did it so we could find out where Doyle's hiding spot is, and save Garrett. I just…" She sighed, and there was unexpected tenderness in the way she touched my cheek. "I've had people controlling my life from day one. Doyle was the last, deciding who was good enough for me to be involved with and who wasn't—and then you were always so demanding, so determined to prove yourself and your dominance to me. I just wanted to be on top for once, that's all. I just wanted to be the one _on top of things_."

"Maura," I said quietly.

"The only reason I didn't tell you about Doyle sooner was because I was afraid he'd try—well, doing something like _this _with you," Maura said. "Only I wouldn't be here to make sure nothing really happened. This way he still thinks he's in control."

"What's your plan?"

"I know where the keys are to your cuffs, and I know how to get them."

"Okay," I said, trying to think. It was still hard. In my gut, I knew I had to trust that Maura knew what she was doing. "Just make me one promise."

"After all this? Anything."

"If we get out of all this… finish disciplining me for not trusting you right away."


	13. Risk the Ride

**A/N**: Well folks, thanks for sticking with me. This is going to be the final chapter, although I'm also thinking of including an alternate ending, because why not. This has been a hard and difficult writing journey, so really, thank you for staying around. References herein: _The Narrow Margin, White Heat, _and _Ball of Fire._

* * *

If Helen of Troy's was the mug that launched a thousand ships, Maura Isles' knockers would have launched back-up for every ten. Make that every five. One. Even the most nearsighted buffoon wouldn't need a pair of cheaters to appreciate those.

These are the sorts of life-or-death ideas that run through my mind when I'm in mortal danger, handcuffed to a bed, with a gorgeous broad hovering over me. Her hair had been tickling my face and I ached to move up and catch her lips in a kiss as much as someone dying for a breath of wind during a heat wave; but then Maura sat up, and my breeze was gone. She was kneeling over my thighs, her teal skirt pooling like so much water. There was an expectant look in her eye, and I wondered if maybe she was waiting for my hand to disappear up her skirt before I remembered—again, chump that I am—that my hands were literally tied and she'd just said she knew where the key was to my cuffs.

Doyle was waiting for her. We had to be fast.

"So?" I breathed. "Where's the key?"

"Hold on, slugger," she said with a smirk, running her finger down my torso. "What's it worth to you?" Curse her voice, all buttery and smooth like you'd imagine a sphinx's to be.

"Depends on what _I'm _worth to _you_, I suppose," I answered, barely refraining from rolling my eyes. "Even if I couldoffer you any dough, you wouldn't need it."

"I'd look good in a new coat," Maura suggested teasingly.

"Honey, you'd look good in a shower curtain." Ooh, a shower. With Maura. There was a real idea.

She smiled and finally got up. "One of Doyle's brutes has the key. I think his name is O'Malley. If I could get him in here alone under false pretenses, maybe you could—"

"Get him within kicking distance and I'm good to go."

Maura smoothed out her shirt, nodded at me, and disappeared behind the door. And for a few moments, strangely, all I could think of was Jo Friday, our company mutt. Apparently Korsak had saved her from taking the long walk, and not a second too soon: she'd been in the puppy slammer, and was about to be killed off to make room for some other inmates before Korsak happened to drop by on business and asked for her. I wondered if a dog ever knew in times like that—if he ever knew he was about to die. I wondered if they ever felt tense, I like felt tense, waiting on what might as well have been a bed full of needles for Maura to come back, either with a death warrant (if Doyle tagged along) or my emancipation, if she managed only to bring O'Malley.

It wound up to be the latter.

O'Malley had a puss that told me he'd spent most of his childhood sitting in the corner of a classroom with a dunce cap on his head. In addition to that, it looked as though he'd been beaten to about an inch of his life with the ugly stick. His grin was hollow and devious like a jack-o-lantern's, his hair definitely could use a trim, and I noticed Maura gave him more space than necessary—probably because he smelled about as pretty as a hidden bunch of eggs nobody had found after Easter. Disgusting as he was, all I really cared about was the gun he had on one hip and the set of keys he had jangling on the other.

"So the boss's daughter said she needed a little help," he said, rolling up his sleeves as Maura shut the door. "Although it sounded to me like she was doing just fine beating off the jive session on her own."

"I don't bruise easily," I said. Sneering at Maura, I clenched my teeth and growled, "You make me sick to my stomach!"

"Is that so? Well, use your own sink," she snidely returned, winking at me behind this lug's back.

O'Malley just chuckled, looking between the two of us like a hawk trying to pick out the choicest piece of meat. "Y'know, Doyle's put me on the rounds for you before, Maura. This is the first favor I'll be doing for you that I'm actually looking forward to. Until now, it was all, 'make sure only a good picture gets in the paper,' 'make sure she don't ever end up with one of my stevedores on the docks,' 'make sure there's enough cream in her coffee.'"

"If I were the cream in her coffee, I'd curdle," I said, and Maura bit her knuckles to keep from laughing behind this guy's back.

He settled pretty quickly on me, walking the rest of the distance to the bed I was cuffed to, leering over me. Just one or two more steps and he'd be close enough for that triangle, leg choke-hold Frost had taught me—he'd once had a Japanese neighbor who was highly disciplined in the study of ju jitsu, and had learned some moves which he'd then passed on to me. I'd never actually put any into real practice, and here was my chance.

And there went my chance when O'Malley suddenly toppled on top of the bed, collapsing unconscious on my waist. Behind him stood Maura, trembling, my old billy club in her raised hand. "Did I kill him?" she asked in a hushed voice, looking terrified at the very thought.

I took a second to honestly evaluate the man's condition before replying, "He's still breathing."

Maura let out a breath herself, lowering her arm and letting the billy club fall to the floor. Almost instantly she composed herself, tossing her hair behind her shoulder like knocking out droppers like this goon was part of her everyday routine. But as I saw her bend over O'Malley to take the keys from his belt, I could see her fingers were shaking slightly. She'd been a nurse in the war; she'd seen death, she'd seen the worst. But she'd never physically hurt anyone else before. She'd had the tar taken out of her verbally, but never socked anything to anyone. It's a wonder she hit him just right, just enough to knock him cold but not enough to rub him out.

When she had unlocked the cuff holding my left and, I swung my arm forward and grabbed her wrist. Her eyes flicked to mine, and I kissed the back of her palm. And then I did something I couldn't remember sincerely doing in years. Frankie used to say it was an unwritten biblical revelation that Jesus would come again after I did it, until Ma started chastising him for being sacrilegious.

I thanked her.

It was just a whisper, just two words—"thank you"—and yet Maura was looking at me as though I'd just recited a dozen of Shakespeare's most romantic sonnets.

What did it matter that at the moment, we were in a dingy, poorly-lit, sealed-off little room? What did it matter that one of my hands was still cuffed, and there was a slugged-out button man lying next to me? What did it matter that in a minute or two we would be on the run for our lives? For just a second, all that mattered was that instead of throwing me to the dogs like she could have (and should have, for self-preservation's sake), she wanted to save me.

Behind all the sneering and jeering, the jokes and the jerks, the hard-earned cynicism and cruel tactics imposed on single women living in a man's world—she wanted me. We wanted each other.

Maura leaned over and gave me a quick kiss on the lips before pulling back to free my other mitt from its cuff. She stood next to the bed as I groaned and sat up, flexing my newly-freed wrists.

"You're welcome."

The way she said it made me wonder if any soldiers had found the time to express gratitude for her sacrifices—at least, in such a way that was simply honest, not Dennis Rockmond's attempts to get in her skirt.

"You did good," I said, getting to my feet and nodding at O'Malley's body. "Not just any woman could take out a guy like that." I nudged her with my elbow. "I like a girl with a little hair on her chest."

Maura's eyes narrowed briefly. "Excessive chest hair growth on women is primarily the result of enocri—"

"Shut up, Maura," I laughed. "It's a saying. You haven't heard that one before?"

"I guess not."

"Doesn't matter. I think we're a match."

Given the desperate manner in which she grabbed two fistfuls of my shirt and yanked me into a kiss, I believe it's a safe assumption to say she agreed. But we weren't off the hook yet, and I didn't let the kiss last as long as I'd have liked.

I doubled back to O'Malley and grabbed his bean-shooter off his hip, checking his bullets. Looks like I'd only have five chances to take someone out if I had to. "Was anyone in the hallway when you went out there a minute ago?"

"Just Doyle's other handyman."

"Think he'll squawk?"

"If we try to sneak past him? I think he'll notice, yes, and I don't think he'll keep quiet about it to Doyle."

"Okay. Um…where d'you think he's holding Garrett?"

"Probably his office, now that I think about it."

"Right. Well, Maura, here it is: if we wanna blow and we wanna get Garrett out, too, we may have to kill Doyle. And by 'may have to,' I mean it's optional like paying your taxes is optional."

"So…ah."

"Yup. Still want to go through with this?"

I looked at her over my shoulder, and saw that she was grimacing. Somehow, a grimace didn't look quite at home on a face so pretty. Like how you wouldn't hang a Monet original over your toilet. "If you have to kill him in self-defense, I won't stand in your way," she said. "Paddy Doyle is a murderer, callous as a blister." She took hold of my arm. "Do what you have to, Jane."

What does it say about me that I was excited by her permission? Having a shot a Doyle when coppers and G-men had been after him for years—this could be a real break for me.

Maura opened the door just slightly, enough to look out into the hallway. "It's empty," she whispered. Carefully, we stepped out into the hall, and Maura nodded at a room a little further down. As we crept towards it, we realized pretty quickly why Doyle's other gorilla wasn't hanging around in plain view. From behind the door, we could hear his voice:

"Say your prayers, your dirty rat. My boss don't like being lied to, see?"

And then came Garrett Fairfield's voice, desperate and scared: "I swear on God's name, I am not lying!"

There was a rough smacking sound, unmistakably the result of a wooden chair leg rising and hitting the floor. I could easily picture Garrett tied to a chair and getting socked in the face with enough force to rattle the furniture. Maura put her hand on the knob, but I touched her wrist and shook my head. Garrett was hurt, no doubt, but not badly enough that I felt the need to intervene yet. Eavesdropping could be a useful weapon, and I wasn't going to risk throwing it away until I had to, until it became clear Garrett's life was at stake.

Doyle didn't have all he wanted from him yet, which meant I didn't either.

Doyle's voice came next: "You have designs on my daughter, Fairfield. You set it up so we could knock off that wanna-be playboy brother of yours, and the deal was that you'd take his business and cut me a break. Your money and your goddam family name was supposed to keep the scandal rags away, supposed to keep the bulls at bay. Wasn't that so, Reilly?"

"It was so, boss."

"Fellas, that's true, but I didn't—"

Another smack. "Didn't what?" Doyle half-shouted. "Didn't think I'd notice you stuck an amateur gumshoe on the case? Didn't think I'd notice you were trying to draw attention away from yourself, to pin it all on me, 'cause who'd ever accuse a bright boy like you? Didn't think I'd notice you were still crushing hard on my daughter—_my _daughter—and aiming to take your brother's place in her life? What makes you think you're good enough if your brother wasn't?"

Time to pull the plug. I yanked the door open, and three sets of eyes zoomed instantly towards me, followed just as quickly by two raised guns. I stuck the barrel of O'Malley's gun into Maura's back, and after a moment's hesitation, she obligingly raised her hands.

"Put down the gats, or I'll burn a clean powder-hole right through your daughter's pretty chest," I snarled.

I saw Reilly falter, but Doyle just sneered. "You don't have the guts."

"The hell I don't."

"Wanna play chicken, girlie?" he asked, and he pointed his gun right at Garrett's head. Garrett looked about ready to faint. "Let's go ahead. You give me my daughter or pretty-boy gets it."

"You think I care about what happens to Garrett Fairfield?" I snorted.

For the first time, Doyle looked confused. "If you don't, what are you bargaining for?"

That was a good point. I hadn't really thought this through. "Justice," I sighed. "If you kill him, I can't prove he had a hand in his brother's murder."

"He won't sing. He won't ever sing. You kill me, there goes your witness."

"There's always evidence. And I figure I can swing life in the big house for Garrett if he helps me catch you." I shrugged. "Not much of a life, I grant you, but it's still life."

"I'll take it!" Garrett blurted.

The next minute unspooled at warp-speed, the seconds unraveling like coins flying out of a slot machine. Doyle had turned to look angrily at Garrett and I saw his trigger-finger twitch. In that moment, without thinking, there went my charade: I withdrew my gun from Maura's back and stepped in front of her, anticipating a crossfire that had yet to start. Reilly saw my move, saw I'd been bluffing, and raised his gun at me. But I was quicker. All I needed was one bullet, and Reilly was dead on the floor.

Doyle didn't even blink for his fallen comrade, staring instead in bewilderment at me and Maura. "The hell is this?" he muttered.

"It's called chivalry," I said, and Maura placed her hand on my shoulder. "A gangster like you's probably never heard of it."

"Maura, c'mere," Doyle growled.

She stayed behind me. She stayed with me. Her sweaty hand latched onto my free one, and I grasped it as tight as I could. Doyle moved the barrel of his gun from Garrett's head and pointed it at me.

To this day I still haven't asked Maura what exactly prompted her to stand in front of me at that moment. Maybe it was love, maybe it was just concern for an innocent pawn. Maybe it was just that she had this blind faith in Doyle not to harm her, and maybe we could avoid spilling any more blood. Whatever the case was, she didn't say a word, and Doyle lowered his weapon.

"Untie him," she said softly but steadily.

Doyle pulled a knife out of his jacket pocket and sliced the knot behind Garrett's chair, and Garrett hopped up faster than Jo Friday when I offered her bacon. He bolted, and didn't stop at the doorway—he flew down the hall, but I didn't bother chasing him. Not when I had Patrick Doyle right here.

"Aren't you gonna go after him?" Doyle asked, addressing Maura.

"Yeah, maybe you should go stop him," I murmured, now standing by Maura's side.

"No," she insisted quietly. "I'm not leaving you."

I looked over at her, and saw determination reflected in her eyes. I think Doyle saw something too.

"You're a faker," he said to me, and I returned my gaze to him. "But you're a cop. And I don't like cops."

"Yeah? Well I don't like thugs."

His lip curled. "I don't make it a habit to kill women, but you're hardly a woman, are you?"

"Aren't I?"

"Get away, Maura."

For once, I echoed his sentiment. "Scram, Maura."

She didn't heed, and Doyle was done. He fired a shot, and the bullet went whistling between us. Whether that was on purpose or not I'll never really know, because I didn't give him the chance to try again or explain. I shot at his hand and his gun clattered to the floor. That was his opportunity to come in quietly, but he couldn't let go, reaching for his knife and preparing to throw it. I sent the rest of my Chicago lightning at him, and he crumpled to the linoleum, no more alive than yesterday's old news.

Maura had cringed and tightened her grip at the sound of the gunfire, and now in that ever-loving, ever-loud silence afterwards, was only barely starting to become less tense.

When I looked her in the eye, I knew she didn't expect or want me to apologize. This man I'd just killed may have fathered her, but she had no connection to him beyond that. He'd killed too many men for too many petty reasons, used bullets instead of words, blindly sought blood instead of true justice. I'd taken his life to spare ours, to spare countless others in the future. I tossed my gun to the floor, and fell with a very final-sounding clunk.

I stepped over Doyle's body and sat myself in his chair, putting my feet up on his desk and grabbing the horn. "I'm gonna give Frankie a ring," I explained to Maura. "My brother, the cop. Tell him to keep an eye out for Garrett Fairfield."

"I don't know if that will work," Maura said. "Garrett's very good at hiding when he doesn't want to be found. Although, like Doyle said, he probably won't think he'll have to. He'll just hide behind a lawyer. Finding a loophole through which you could drag him to justice will be like… well, trying to find a needle in a haystack."

"Aw, that's a cinch," I said. "All you have to do is get a horse to eat the hay, and then x-ray the horse."

I grinned at her, and she only hesitantly reflected it. I got an operator on the telephone, and as I placed my call, I watched Maura slowly step over Doyle's body. She paused to inspect it, though she never squatted down. As I talked to Frankie (telling him about Garrett and also advising him that Doyle had been killed, and I'd get him an address soon), she sat on the other side of Doyle's desk, picking up a pen and turning over a clean piece of paper. She started writing something slowly, methodically, and when I hung up, she handed over the paper.

It said _Garrett Fairfield_.

"What's this?" I asked.

"That's Garrett's signature."

"Lovely."

"Thank you. It's fairly exact, if I may say so." She tried not to smile when comprehension must have finally dawned on my face. "You heard Doyle as clearly as I did, Jane. Garrett confessed. He might as well have written it out, don't you think? Perhaps typed it out a fancy machine?"

"And if I were to, say, find that letter in my office's typewriter on _this _sheet of paper," I mused, taking it from Maura, "What then?"

She shrugged. "What indeed, detective?"

"You don't think it's dishonest?"

"A tad. Just don't put me on the stand about where it came from, and I won't break into hives."

"It's a deal, Dr. Isles."

We shook hands over the desk, and when I stood up, she followed suit. As we left Doyle's office, she glanced at Reilly and said, "There were my two-bit thugs, I suppose. Now, Jane."

"Yes?"

She took my hand as walked down the long hallway towards a stairwell that she must have known led to the outside. "You promised me grafters and _shysters_, too."

"So I did."

"And you promised me something else, too. You promised me yourself."

"You promised to stick with me." Nodding at the stretch of hallway behind us, I only half-jokingly said, "This was just another day in the office. Think you can handle that?"

"I think it'll be one heck of a ride, Jane Rizzoli. I'll risk it."

She smiled, and it was disarmingly sincere. She wasn't smiling at me; she was smiling _for_ me. I knew I had no right to expect that she'd stay with me past a night or two, but she did. I knew I had no right to hope that lust would evolve into something a bit sweeter, but it did. I knew I had no right to hope my heart would leave its lonely place for a woman's face, but it did. The good came to light. The darkness hung around, but she helped to sweep it away into the corner until I was ready to deal with it. I'm not perfect and she's not perfect, and we're absolutely not perfect together. It's heaven and hell, Eden and just east of it.

But since we met, she's been my constant. I've been hers.

The trick was finding her.

It had started out ugly and angry and hopeless and unsure. And then it jump-started the best thing that ever happened to me: my relationship with Maura Isles, my funny valentine.


End file.
